LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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Shelf ...S^.3 y- 

UNITEW STATES OF AMERICA. 



PRICE, 50 CENTS. 



"Since the Revolution days the few thinkers of America born south of Mason and Dixon's 
line are outnumbered bxj those bdonging to the single State of Massachusetts; nor is it too 
much to say that mainly by tlieir connection leith tite North the CaroUnas have been saved 
from sinking to the level of Mexico or tlie Antilles." — Encyclopedia Britannica. 



"And yet this work has been sold in the South to the extent of thousands of copies. 
* •■■ * But it is only here and there that a voice is raised in defense of the truth of 
history. Crushed under the accumulating burdens of falsehood, the South goes on 
making history without encouraging her sons to write it. 

"Perhaps we have no right to expect anything better. Instead of rejecting the 
Britannica, when it deliberately states that the Carolinas have been saved mainly by 
their connection with the North from sinking to the level of Mexico, we purchase the 
work and consult it as authority."— TAe Atlanta Constitution. 



THE 



BRITANNICA ANSWERED 



AND THE 

SOUTH YINDIMTED. 



By T. K. OGLESBY. 



"The Want of a History of the Southern People" was the subject of Thomas Nelson 
Page's address before the University of Virginia Alumni Association of Louisville; and 
as one of the strongest proofs of this want, and the most impressive illustration of what 
the outer world thinks of us, Mr. Page cited the statements of the Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica that were recently so effectually answered by Mr. T. K. Oglesby, in the columns 
of Tlw Advertiser. The South should awake to the importance of vindicating herself 
against such statements as those made by the Encyclopedia Britannica. Everything 
that conduces to this end should be encouraged, welcomed and treasured by the 
Southern people as the precious muniments of their right to a place among the very 
noblest of the world's civilizations."— T/tc Montgomery Advertiser. 



"Mr. Oglesby's letters are truthful, brilliant, pungent and delightful. It would be 
impossible for a Southern man to read them and not feel a sense of increased pride in 
his section ; and for the rising generation just such literature is needed to counteract 
the poison instilled by alien and embittered writers."- TAe Florence (Ala.) Times. 



THE BRITANNIGA ANSWERED 



THE SOUTH YINDIGATED 



A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

AGAINST THE ASPERSIONS 



OF 



THE BBSY6L0PBDIA BRITANNIGA 



AND 



A CRITICISM OF THAT WORK 



/by /<^^^^'°f'co;v<?::r 

^^ copyright""' 
T. K. OGLESBY. V /hXy-^}' 



MONTGOMERY, ALA: 
PRESS OF THE ALABAMA PRINTING COMPANY. 






'Jf 



Entered According to Act of Con(;re.ss, in the Year 1801, by 

T. K. OGLESBY, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 






THE BRITANNISA ANSWERED, 



AND 



THE SOUTH Y1NDI0ATED 

By T. K. OGLESBY. 



[These pages comprise the articles published under the above heading in the Mont- 
gomery (Ala.,) Advertiser, January, 1891. They have been annotated and enlarged, 
and, in compliance with many requests— indicating what seems to be a very general 
des'ie— are now published in this form.] 



I. 



A communication in a late number of the Advertiser called at- 
tention to certain statements in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and 
asked if they could not be refuted. It referred to the statements 
in the Britannica's article on American Literature that "since the 
Revolution days the few thinkers of America born south of Mason 
and Dixon's line are outnumbered by those belonging to the single 
State of Massachusetts," and that "mainly by their connection 
with the north have Southern states been saved from sinking to 
the level of Mexico or the Antilles." 

In refutation of these statements, reflecting so injuriously on 
the intellect and civilization of the South, I desire to lay before 
the public, through the widely read columns of the Advertiser, a 
summary of historical facts, showing that to the South, far more 
than to any other section, is this Union indebted for the genius, 
wisdom, enterprise, patriotism and valor that have given it so 
proud an eminence among the nations of the earth. The material 
for this purpose being too abundant to be comprised in a single 
article of appropriate length for the columns of a daily paper, this 
will, if you please, be followed by other articles in refutation of 
the Britannica's slur upon the South, and exposing its general 



4 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

worthlessness as a Cyclopedia for Americans, and especially for 
Southern people. 

I will begin, then, the purposed refutation and exposure of the 
Britannica, with the following simple statement of historic facts: 

The first President of the United States, and the most illustri- 
ous American — "the man first in war, first in peace, and first in 
the hearts of his countrymen," under whose leadership the colo- 
nies won their independence, and on whom, by common acclaim, 
is bestowed the title, "the father of his country," — was a Southern 
man . 

The first President of the Continental Congress was a Southern 
nian,^ and a Southern member of that Congress was the author 
and mover of the adoption of the resolution declaring the Colo- 
nies free and independent States.^ 

The greatest American orator — the man whose words most in- 
spired the American heart and nerved the American arm in the 
struggle for independence — was a Southern man. 

The author of the Declaration of Independence — the most 
famous production of an American pen- — was a Southern man, 
and when the peoples of the United States met to celebrate the 
Centennial of that Declaration it was a Southern man who was 
selected to write the poem for the opening of that Centennial. ^ 

"The father of the Constitution" was a Southern man;^ its 
greatest expounder — the greatest American jurist — was a Southern 
man;'' and when, in the fullness of time, the peoples of the Union 
came to celebrate the Centennial of that immortal instrument, it 
was a Southern man who was the chosen orator of that memora- 
ble and imposing occasion,*^ 

For more than half the period of its existence the Government 
formed by that Constitution has been administered by Presidents 
who were Southern men, and the years of their administrations 
mark immeasurably the most splendid and prosperous eras of the 
Union. It was the statesmanship of a Southern President,' sec- 
onded by the ability of a Southern diplomat,*^ that extended the 
boundary of the United States from the Gulf of Mexico and the 

1. Peyton Randolph. 

2. Richard Henry Lee. 

3. Sidney Lanier. 

4. James Madison. 

5. Johfi MarshalL 

6. Samuel F. Miller. 

7. Jeilerson. 

8. James Monroe. 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 5 

Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean on the northwest, thus add- 
ing to them a territory greater in extent than their original limits; 
it was Southern valor and Southern statesmanship that carried the 
boundary on the southwest from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, 
and added Texas, New Mexico and California to the United 
States — an addition of 20,000 square miles more than the original 
Thirteen States had; it was the prowess of a Southern soldier^ that 
secured to the Republic all that territory northwest of the 
Ohio river, of which the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 
gan and Wisconsin were afterwards made; the policy that made 
that territory public domain — the common property of all the 
States — was the policy that has done more than any other to build 
up the Union, and it is indebted for that policy to the wisdom 
and patriotism of the Southern States of Maryland and Virginia, — 
to Maryland for proposing and urging it, and to Virginia for 
acceding to it, for that territory belonged to her, and in giving 
it to the United States for the sake of the Union she furnished 
the crowning proof of her devotion to that Union and became 
the "mother of States" as she was already the "mother of states- 
men;" and the men who blazed the way for civilization in that 
vast region beyond the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains 
— the most famous American explorers and adventurers — were 
Southern men. 

For nearly two-thirds of the period of its existence has the Su- 
preme Court of the United States — the sheet-anchor of the gov- 
ernment — been presided over by Southern men, and their decis- 
ions constitute by far the wisest, purest and most luminous pages 
of the record of that august tribunal. 

The writer of our national anthem was a Southern man;- the 
author of the Emancipation Proclamation was of Southern birth 
and lineage; and of the three contemporary American statesmen 
known as "the great trio,"^ two were Southern men, and it was 
one of these two whose statesmanship and patriotism twice saved 
the Union from dismemberment. 

The first shot in the second war of the United States with Eng- 
land was fired by a Southern man;^ the most distinguished sol- 
diers of tha|; war were Southern men; the most complete and over- 

1. George Rogers Clark. 

2. Francis S. Key. 

3. Clay, Calhoun and Webster. 

4. Captain John Rodgers, of Maryland. 



6 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

whelming defeat that any English army has ever experienced was 
inflicted by Southern troops commanded by a Southern man;^ the 
man who performed what Admiral Nelson called "the most dar- 
ing act of the age," and who received the thanks of all Europe 
for overthrowing the Barbary powers and putting an end to their 
inhuman cruelties, was a Southern man;- and the most distin- 
guished soldiers of the war with Mexico were Southern m.en. 

The first candidate of the Abolition party for the Presidency of 
the United States was a Southern man;-' so was its second candi- 
date,'' and so was its fourth and last and only elected candidate. 

The first Sunday-School established in America was in a South- 
ern State;'^ the first American to establish schools exclusively for 
the education of young women wa'; a Southern man;*^ the first fe- 
male college in the world was established in a Southern State; "" 
the first post-graduate medical school in this country — the New 
York polyclinic and hospital — was established by a Southern phy- 
sician ;''^ the first agricultural journal in this country was estab- 
lished by a Southern man;'' and the first native Methodist itiner- 
ant in America was a Southern man.^'^ 

The man who first gave a complete description of the Gulf 
stream — who first marked out specific routes to be followed in 
crossing the Atlantic — who fir^t instituted the system of deep-sea 
sounding — -who first suggested the establishment of telegraphic 
communication between the continents by cable on the bed of the 
ocean, and who indicated the line along which the existing cable 
was laid, was a Southern man;^' and it was a Southern man who 
originated the plan for splicing the cable in mid ocean. '- 

It was a Southern man who was declared by the French Acad- 
emy of Sciences to have done more for the cause of agriculture 
than any other living man;^^ a Southern man was the inventor of 
the Catling gun; the inventor of the machinery that first propelled 
a boat by steam was a Southern man;^^ the first steamship that 

1. Andrew Jackson. 

2. .Stt-phen Decatur. 

3. James G Biniey. 

4. John C. Fremont. 

h. At Savannah, Georgia. 

(i. John Lyle, of Virginia. 

7. The Wesleyan l^'emale College, Macon, Georgia. 

.s. John A. \\ yeth. of Alabama. 

'.). "The American Farmer." by John S. .Skinner, of Maryland. . 

]() William Watters, of Maryland and Virginia. 

11. Matthew F. Maury. 

IJ. l>r. .Tames ('. Pa'mer, of Maryland. 

IM. Cyrus H. McCorniii k. 

11. James Kumsey, of Maryland. 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 7 

crossed the Atlantic went from a Southern city, whose name it 
bore and whose citizens had it built/ and its engine was con- 
structed by a Southern man.'^ The inventor of the first compre- 
hensive system of ciphers used by the Associated press,"* and of 
the first pyrotechnic system of signals in the United States,"* and 
the author of international fog-signals^ — each of these was a 
Southern man. 

That which has been pronounced the most original discovery 
ever made in physical science by an American was made by a 
Southern man;*^' the physician who first used sulphuric ether to 
produce anaesthesia for surgical operations,'^ the successful per- 
former of the first operation for extirpation of the ovary on record 
— "the father of ovariotomy,"''* the man distinguished as the 
greatest lithotomist of the nineteenth century,^ and the world's 
greatest gynecologist,^*^ — were all Southern men. 

The most learned American mineralogist,^^ the greatest Ameri- 
can naturalist,^'" the most famous American musician,*'^ the artist 
known as the "American Titian, "^^ the greatest American archi- 
tect,^'"* and the world's greatest chess-player, i*^ were all Southern 
men, as are the greatest American tragedian^" and the most noted 
American dramatist, ^^ and 

THE ONLY WOMAN ON RECORD 

who was the wife of a governor, the sister of a governor, the niece 
of a governor, the mother of a governor, and the aunt and foster- 
mother of a governor, was a Southern woman. ^•' 

How stands the Britannica's assertion in the light of these 
facts ? 

1. Savannah. 

2. Daniel Dod. of Virginia. 

3. Alexander Jones, M. D., of North Carolina. 

4. Henry J. Roger.s, of Maryland. 

5. Samuel P. Griffin, of Georgia. 

«i. The discovery of oxygen in the sun by photography, by Henry Draper, of Virginia. 

7. Crawford W. Long, i)l Georgia. 

8. Ephraim McDowell, of N'irglnia. 

9. Benjamin W. Dudley, of Virginia. 

10. J. Mar'on Sims, of So'Uh Carolina. 

11. John Lawrence Smith, of South Carolina. He was employed by the Turkish 
government to explore its mineral res.inrces. and it still derives part of its income from 
his discoveries. He received the order of Nichan Iftabar and that of the Medjidieh 
from taat government, and the order of St. Stanislas from Russia, and the cross of the 
Legion of Honor from Napoleon III. He was also inventor of the inverted microscope. 

12. Audubon. 

13. Gottschalk. 

14. Allston. 

15. Henry H. Richardson, of Louisiana. 

16. Paul Morphv. 

17. Edwin Bo th. 
IS. Augustin Daly. 

19. Mrs. Richard Manning, of South Carolina. 



THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 



II. 



The facts I have already stated are enough and more than 
enough to vindicate the South from the aspersions of the Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica, but the occasion, and the fact that there are 
some who — unduly impressed by the high-sounding title and the 
imposing claims of that pretentious and ponderous collection of 
abstruse essays — are inclined to make a literary fetish of it, require 
that something further be here written in contrasting its statements 
with the truth of history. 

The Britannica, in its article on American Literature, naming 
the two Carolinas as types of the Southern States, asserts that 
mainly by their connection with the North have they been saved 
from sinking to the level of Mexico or the Antilles — becoming, in 
short, a set of semi-barbarians. To this explicit assertion, so 
degrading to Southern people, I oppose an explicit denial, and I 
hale the Britannica before the tribunal of History, whose record it 
has falsified. 

A FURTHER APPEAL TO THE RECORD. 

What says that record further? Was it in the South, or in the 
North — in the Carolinas, or in Massachusetts — that a law was 
made prescribing that a person, if once convicted of being a 
Quaker, should lose one ear, — if twice so convicted, should lose 
another ear, — and if convicted the third time of the diabolical 
crime of Quakerism, was to be bored through the tongue with a 
red-hot iron ? Was it in the South, or in the North — in the Caro- 
linas, or in Massachusetts — that a penalty was inflicted on any one 
who entertained a Quaker, and men and women were banished on 
pain of death and hung — for being Quakers ? Was it in the South, 
or in the North — in the Carolinas, or in Massachusetts — that de- 
crepit old men were hung and pressed to death — and pure, inno- 
cent women torn from their children and jailed and hung — as 
witches ? Was it in the South, or in the North — in the Carolinas, 
or in Massachusetts — that children were tied neck and heels 
together till the blood was ready to gush from them, to make them 
swear falsely against their own mother — accused of being a witch ? 
Was it here or there that men were hung for denying the existence 
of witchcraft ? And were they of the North, or of the South — of 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. * 9 

Massachusetts, or the Carolinas — the preachers and judges who 
incited and applauded the jailing, and banishing, and torturing and 
slaughtering o"f Quakers and "witches" ? To each and all of these 
questions, History, with its inexorable, unerring pen, answers — 
"Massachusetts !" 

And where was it that, only a few years ago, the skin of persons 
who had died as inmates of an alms-house was tanned and made 
into articles of merchandise? Have we not the authority of one 
who is himself a distinguished citizen of that State for saying that 
this tanning of human hide for commercial purposes was in Mas- 
sachusetts ? Did not no less a personage than the governor of 
that State say so ? 

WORDS FROM WASHINGTON. 

What was it that, most of all, filled the great heart of Washing- 
ton with grief, and doubt, and despondency in that first winter of 
the Revolution, when he was straining every nerve to keep an 
army before Boston ? Read the answer in his own almost despair- 
ing words. Writing from Cambridge to a trusted friend — after 
telling of the lack of powder and arms, and money — he says: 
"These are evils but small in comparison of those which disturb 
my present repose. Our enlistments are at a stand. The fears I 
ever entertained are realized; that is, the discontented officers 
have thrown such difficulties or stumbling-blocks in the way of 
recruiting that I no longer entertain a hope of completing the 
army by voluntary enlistments. The reflection upon my situation 
produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapt in 
sleep." "To be plain," he continues, "these people are not to be 
depended on;" and he advises appealing to their cupidity by the 
offer of large bounties, for (he adds) "notwithstanding all the 
public virtue which is ascribed to these people, there is no nation 
under the sun that pays greater adoration to money than they do." ^ 
Who were "these people" — the people of whom Washington 
wrote those words? Whence came the troops of whom Alexander 
Graydon, a Revolutionary soldier of Pennsylvania, recorded in his 
Memoirs these words: "It appeared that the sordid spirit of gain 
was the vital principle of this part of the army?"- Were the peo- 

1. Washiiigiou to Joseph Reed. 

2. "I have been cediljly inforuieil that it was no nnusual tl;ing in the army before 
Boston for a Colonel to make drummers and fifers of his sons, thereby not onty being 
able to form a, very snug, economical me^s. but to aid also considerably the revenue of 
the family chest." Graydon's Memoiis, p. 148. 



lO - THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

pie of whom Washington wrote, and the troops to whom Graydon 
referred, from the North, or from the South — from New England 
or the Carolinas? Again, History, making response to this ques- 
tion, answers: "New England!" (Who can help thinking, right 
here, in connection with the words of Washington and Graydon, 
of that general of the Revolution whose "sordid spirit of gain" 
made him a traitor to his country? Benedict Arnold was not a 
Carolinian nor a Southern man.) 

HELP FROM THE SOUTH. 

With enlistments at a stand, and without powder for the troops 
he had, and among a people "whose vital principle seemed to be 
the sordid spirit of gain," what wonder is it that the unselfish 
Southern patriot had such gloomy forebodings? Happily for him 
and for the country his sorest immediate need was about to be sup- 
plied. A British ship loaded with powder was captured off 
Savannah about this time by a vessel commissioned for the pur- 
pose by the Provincial Congress of Georgia, and, badly as it was 
needed at the South, a large portion of it was immediately dis- 
patched to the army at Cambridge — for the South had declared 
ttiat "the cause of Boston is the cause of all." This was the first 
capture ordered by any American Congress, the vessel that made 
it was the first vessel commissioned for warfare in the Revolution, 
and it was this powder, thus captured, that enabled Washington 
to drive the British from Boston. 

TALLEYRAND RELATES AN INCIDENT, AND CHANNING AND BRYANT 
WRITE LETTERS. 

Talleyrand relates that when he was in this country he met a 
citizen of Maine who had never seen Washington. Talleyrand 
asked him if he would not, when he visited Philadelphia, like to 
see that great man. The Maine citizen said he would be pleased 
to see Washington, but evinced a much greater desire "to see Mr. 
Bingham, who they say is so rich." In the eyes of the Maine man 
George Washington was "small potatoes" in comparison with "the 
rich Mr. Bingham." 

Nearly a quarter of a century after Washington penned at Cam- 
bridge the letiers quoted above, William Ellery Charming wrote 
from Richmond these words: "I blush for my own people when 
I compare the selfish prudence of a Yankee with the generous con- 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. H 

fidence of a Virginian. There is one single trait which attaches 
me to the people here more than all the virtues of New England, 
— they love money less than we do; they are more disinterested; 
their patriotism is not tied to their purse strings." Still forty 
years later we find William Cullen Bryant, of Massachusetts, 
writing — '"the South certainly has the advantage over us in the 
point of manners." 

THE TRAIL OF THE MONEY DEVIL OVER THEM ALL. 

The Vice-President of the United States who accepted bribes 
and perjured himself to escape exposure — the Speaker of the 
House of Representatives (afterwards the candidate of the Re- 
publican party for the Presidency) who gave the influence of his 
high place in exchange for lucre — the Cabinet Minister who was 
impeached for selling appointments to the highest bidder — and 
the Credit Mobilier Congressmen — were these of the North or the 
South? All, all Northern. 

THE BRITANNICA SAYS IT WAS. 

Was it their connection with the people whose manners Bryant 
characterized as being inferior — whose "patriotism" (said Chan- 
ning) "is tied to their purse-strings"-r— whose "vital principle" (said 
Graydon) "appeared to be the sordid spirit of gain" — who (said 
Washington) "pay greater adoration to money than any nation 
under the sun, and are not to he depended on" — was it by their 
connection with these people and their Quaker-hanging, "witch"- 
killing ancestry and bribe-taking posterity that Southern people 
have been saved from sinking into barbarism ? The Britannica 
says it was. What says the truth of history? 

THE MEN HE DID DEPEND ON. 

"These people are not to be depended on," wrote Washington 
of the New England troops, but at a later period, when he was 
sending reinforcements to General Gates in response to an appeal 
from tha.t officer, he wrote : 'T have despatched Col. Morgan 
with his corps of riflemen t® your assistance. This corps I have 
great dependence on." Later, when he himself needed reinforce- 
ments and asked that Morgan and his men be sent back, Gates 
replied that he could not then afford "to part with the corps the 
army of General Burgoyne was most afraid of." History tells us 
that the men on whom Washington had such "great dependence," 



1-2 THE BRITAKNICA ANSWERED, 

and of whom Burgoyne's army "was most afraid" were — not from 
New England, but — from Virginia, that land where, said Chan- 
ning, "their jjatriotism is not tied to their purse-strings." 

THREE HISTORIC DOCUMENTS. 

In the archives of the Government at Washington are three 
historic documents worthy of consideration in this connection. 
The first one, in point of time, reads thus: 

"Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia. 

"Chambersburg, Pa., June 27, 1863, 

General Order No. 73. 

"The Commanding General has observed with marked satisfac- 
tion the conduct of the troops on the march, and confidently an- 
ticipates results commensurate with the high spirit they have 
manifested. No troops could have displayed greater fortitude or 
better performed the arduous marches of the past ten days. Their 
conduct in other respects has, with few e.xceptions, been in keep- 
ing with their character as soldiers, and entitles them to approba- 
tion and praise. There have, however, been instances of forget- 
fulness on the part of some that they have in keeping the yet un- 
sullied reputation of the army, and that the duties exacted of us 
by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the 
country of our enemy than in our own. The Commanding Gen- 
eral considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and 
through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbar- 
ous outrages upon the innocent and defenceless, and the wanton 
destruction of private property that have marked the course of the 
enemy in our own country. Such proceedings not only disgrace 
the perpetrators and all connected with them, but are subversive 
of the discipline and efficiency of the army, and destructive of 
the ends of our present movements. It must be remembered that 
we make war only on armed men, and that we can not take ven- 
geance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering 
ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by 
the atrocities of our enemy, and offending against Him to whom 
vengeance belongeth. 

"The Commanding General therefore earnestly exhorts the 
troops to abstain, with most scrupulous care, from unnecessary or 
wanton injury to private property, and he enjoins upon all officers 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 13 

to arrest and bring to summary punishment all who shall in any 
way offend against the orders on this subject. 

[Signed.] "R. E. Lee, General." 

The second one of the documents referred to is a letter dated 
— "Headquarters of the Army, Washington, December i8, 1864," 
addressed to "Major-General W. T. Sherman, Savannah," and 
concluding thus: "Should you capture Charleston, I hope that 
by some accident the place may be destroyed, and if a little salt 
should be sown upon its site, it may prevent the growth of future 
crops of nullification and secession. 

[Signed.] "Yours truly, 

"H. W. Halleck, Chiefof-Staff." 

The third document is a letter in which are these words: "I 
will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and do not think 
'salt' will be necessary. When I move, the Fifteenth Corps will 
be on the right of the right wing, and their position will naturally 
bring them into Charleston first ; and, if you have watched the 
history of that corps, you will have remarked that they generally 
do their work pretty well. The truth is, the whole army is burn- 
ing with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Caro- 
lina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel that she deserves all 
that seems in store for her. * * * We must make old 
and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war as well as 
their organized armies." This letter is dated — "Headquarters 
Military Division of the Mississippi, in the Field, Savannah, De- 
cember 24, 1864;" is addressed to "Major-General H. W. Halleck, 
Chief-of-Staff, Washington, D. C," and is signed— "W. T. Sher- 
man, Major-General." 

The burning dwelling houses along the line of his march, and 
the wail of women and children left starving and unsheltered in 
the depth of winter attested how well "the Fifteenth Corps" main- 
tained the reputation to which their commander so proudly 
pointed.^ 

WHICH WAS THE BARBARIAN? 

Which was the barbarian, — the Southerner, who wrote the first 
of these documents, or the Northern man who wrote the last? 
The Southerner, from a long line of Southern ancestry; or the 
Northern man, with generations of Northern ancestors behind 
him? Robert E Lee, or William Tecumseh Sherman? 



1. See Addendum A. 



14 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 



III. 

The Britannica is particularly at fault in citing the Carolinas 
as types of the Southern States in its assertion (in the article on 
American Literature) that they have been saved from sinking to 
the level of Mexico or the Antilles mainly by their connection 
with the North. A more unfortunate reference, to illustrate its 
imputation of Southern barbarism, could not have been made by 
the foreign cyclopedia, as will, I think, be clearly shown by what 
I will here say in relation to the stigma it puts upon those two 
States especially, and through them on the South generally. 

And first, of 

THE OLD NORTH STATE. 

There are no people in the Union nor in the world among whom 
are to be found more of the attributes of sound mental, moral, and 
physical manliood than those which characterize the people of 
North Carolina. Her sons shed, at Alamance, the first blood 
spilled in the Colonies in resistance to British rule — long before a 
gun was fired at Le.xington and Concord ; her Mecklenburg 
County — which Cornwallis called a "hornet's nest," and where he 
encountered, he said, the most obstinate rebels he had found in 
America — proclaimed its "declaration of independence" more 
than a year before the one at Philadelphia; she was the first Col- 
ony to act as a unit in favor of independence; and about the time 
a deputation of Bostonians were appealing to Washington to allow 
the beleaguered British to get out of Boston unmolested, for fear 
of disturbing trade and damaging the shops by a fight, North 
Carolina soldiers, at Moore's Creek Bridge, were winning the first 
real victory on a battle field of the Revolution. 

A STRIKING COINCIDENCE. 

The Bostonians above-mentioned were undoubtedly the ancestry 
of those other representative citizens of Massachusetts who, about 
fortyyears later, were secretly plotting in a convention at Hart- 
ford the secession of the New England States from the Union, 
because their tiade was hurt by the war for the maintenance of 
American rights and honor which was then going on between the 
United States and England, and the Hartford Conventionists were 
unquestionably the close kith and kin of those other representa- 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 15 

tive citizens of New England who, during that trying time in the 
history of our country, burned blue lights on the Connecticut 
coast to put the British on guard against Decatur's plans for 
attacking them ; and it is a striking coincidence that just about 
the time when New England was thus,t by threats of secession, 
endeavoring to paralyze the arm of the Government and giving 
aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war, descendants of the 
above-mentioned North Carolinians were mauling the life out of 
that enemy at New Orleans. 

Who can doubt that Decatur, the Southerner and the patriot, 
had the secession plotters and blue-light burners of New England 
in his mind when he uttered the memorable sentiment: "Our 
country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always 
be in the right. But our country, right or wrong"? 

THE FIRST SECESSION CONVENTION. 

That Convention at Hartford was the first Secession Conven- 
tion in the history of the Union, and was presided over by the 
great-grand-father of Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, of Force Bill no- 
toriety, who is now a representative of Massachusetts in Congress; 
and it was just about four years before the holding of that Con- 
vention that Josiah Quincy, also of Massachusetts, made the first 
speech in Congress in favor of secession. Thus does the record 
show that while the South was fighting to uphold the rights and 
honor of the Union, the New England States, with "their patriot- 
ism tied to their purse-strings," were plotting to break it up be- 
cause the war interrupted their trade for awhile. 

ANOTHER COINCIDENCE. 

To return to the Revolution. Alx)utthe time when Arnold, the 
New England general who turned traitor for British gold, was 
plundering in Virginia, North Carolinians, under Sevier and 
Shelby, Cleveland and McDowell, were striking the British that 
deadly blow at King's Mountain that turned the tide of the Revo- 
lution and eventuated in the capture of Cornwallis and his army 
at Yorktown, and in the independence of all the Colonies and the 
establishment of the United States of America. 

THE BRITANNICA DOESN't MENTION THEM. 

But Sevier, and Shelby, and King's Mountain are nam ,'s not to be 
found in the Britannica's history of the United States. A history 



l6 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

of the United States with no allusion to the battle of King's 
Mountain! Think of a history of France without any account of 
Valmy! Or a history of Germany without the story of the battle 
which rolled back from that country the Roman invasion and 
caused the Roman Emperor to cry in vain to Varus for his legions! 
For, but for King's Mountain the British monarch would not have 
had to mourn his legions lost at Yorktown. 

In this connection it may be noted that the Bntannica has no 
article on Yorktown, and its article on Saratoga makes no men- 
tion of the capture of Bnrgoyne's army there- — the very thing that 
gives Saratoga its historic interest. 

Cornelius Harnett, Richard Caswell, Robert Howe — glorious 
names in American history, — James Iredell, as able a jurist as ever 
sat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States; 
William Gaston, Willie P. Mangum, George E. Badger, — all these 
have shed luster on the American name, in the field or in the 
forum, and all were of North Carolina, but not one of them is 
named in the Britannica. 

And that most illustrious son of "the Old North State" — 
the real American Cincinnatus — whom Jefferson called "the last 
of the Romans," and of whom John Randolph said — "He is the 
wisest, the purest, the best man I ever knew;" what of him in the 
Britannica? Search it through and you will never learn from its 
diffuse pages that such a man as Nathaniel Macon ever lived, — a 
man of whom it is recorded that during fifty-seven years of politi- 
cal life and power he never recommended any of his family to 
public office. (What a contrast to another public functionary, of 
later years — a President of the United States and a Northern 
man, of whom it was said that he quartered on the public treasury 
all his own relatives, all his wife's relatives, and all the relatives 
of these relatives, to the remotest cousinhood.) No, you will find 
nothing of Nathaniel Macon in the Britannica, but you will find 
in it over a column about one Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, 
who died more than a thousand years ago. 

James K. Polk, eleventh President of the United States, was a 
North Carolinian, and Bancroft, the great .American historian, has 
said that, "viewed from the standpoint of results, Polk's was per- 
haps the greatest administration in our national history, certainly 
one of the greatest." 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 17 

AND THE BIGGEST MAN ! 

Finally, Nature, as if not satisfied with bestowing so many other 
marks of distinction upon North Carolina, brought into being and 
reared upon her soil the biggest man, in mere physical propor- 
tions, of whom there is any mention in the history of this 
country. 1 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 

And South Carolina — "the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic 
enterprise," where has ever been found in the highest degree "that 
sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor which feels a stain 
like a wound and inspires courage while it mitigates ferocity;" 
South Carolina — where life's most exquisite grace abides — saved 
from barbarism by connection with Massachusetts ! Shades of the 
long line of statesmen, heroes, orators and scholars of the Palmetto 
State who have illumined history's pages by your words and deeds, 
could ignorance or reckless misrepresentation further go? 

It was William Henry Drayton, of South Carolina, whose 
writings contributed so much to enlighten the public mind in this 
country and Great Britain during the Revolutionary period, and 
to whose celebrated charge to the Charleston grand jury Mr. Jef- 
fersbn has been thought to have been indebted for some of the 
most effective parts of the Declaration of Independence; it was 
John Rutledge, of South Carolina, whose services were of such 
inestimable value to the American cause in its most desperate 
straits, — who was pronounced by Patrick Henry to be the greatest 
orator in the Continental Congress, — who was the first associate 
justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and the second 
Chief Justice appointed by Washington; it was John Laurens, of 
South Carolina, who was distinguished as "the Chevalier Bayard 
of the Revolution," and who was said by John Adams to have 
done more for the United States in the short time of his being in 
Europe as their special envoy than all the rest of their diplomatic 
corps put together; it was Francis Marion who was the most capa- 
ble and famous partisan soldier of the Revolution; it was Charles 
Cotesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina, who was the author of 
the clause in the Constitution forbidding the requiring of any 
religious test as a qualification for office or public trust in the 
United States. 

1. Miles Darden. He weighed over 1,000 pounds. 



l8 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

DID THEY GET THEM FROM THE NORTH? 

Did Laurens get the knightly spirit of a Bayard from connection 
in any way with the ancestry who transmitted the ({uaHties that 
inspired William T. Sherman when he wrote that he didn't think 
it would be necessary to sow salt on the site of Charleston when 
"the Fifteenth Corps" got in their work on that city ? Did Pinck- 
ney get his enlightened and statesman-like principles of religious 
toleration from the teaching and example of the Massachusetts 
preachers and judges and people who tortured and hung Quakers 
and "witches" and drove Roger Williams, the Baptist, into the 
wilderness among the savages, for maintaining that man is respon- 
sible to God alone in matters of conscience, and that no human 
power has the right to intermeddle in them ?^ 

MORE HISTORIC NAMES NOT IN THE BRITANNICA. 

It was William J. Lowndes, a South Carolinian, whom the Duke 
of Argyll and Mr. ^.oscoe pronounced the wisest young man they 
had ever met, and who was declared by Henry Clay to be the 
wisest man he had ever known in Congress; and yet you might 
read every word in the Britannica without learning that such a 
man as William J. Lowndes ever lived.- It was Langdon Cheves, 
of South Carolina, statesman, jurist, and financier, from whom 
Washington Irving said he had for the first time an idea of the 
manner in which the great Greek and Roman orators must have 
spoken, but no word of Cheves do you find in the Britannica. It 
gives space enough to the fights at Lexington and Concord and 
Bunker Hill, but dismisses with one line the disastrous defeat of 
the British at Charleston by Moultrie and the brave Carolinians 
under him, and makes no mention of that distinguished soldier 
nor of William Jasper, one of the most famous of American heroes, 
for whom counties and towns have been named all over the land, 
and to whose memory bronze and marble monuments have been 
reared. Nor can you find anything in it of Gadsden; nor Pick- 

1. See Addendum B. 

■2. In an address on the Fourteenth Congref s, Richard Henry Wi'de, himself a mem- 
ber of that body, alluded to Mr. Lowndes in the following language: "Pre-eminent 
among the members of the F'ourteenth Congress was a gentleman of South Carolina, 
now no more, the purest, the calmest, the most philosophical of our country's modern 
statesmen; one, no less remarkable for gentleness of manners and kindness of heart, 
than for that passionless, lUK^louded intellect, which rendered him deserving of the 
praise, if man ever deserved it, of merely standing by and letting reason argue for 
him; the true patriot, incapable of selfish ambition, who shunned office and disiinc- 
tion, yet served bis countrv faithfully, because he loved her. Kp, I mean, who conse- 
crated by his example, the noble precept, so entirely his own, that the first station in a 
Republic was neither to be sought after or declined; a sentiment so just .-ind so happily 
expressed that it continues to be repeated because it cannot be improved." 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. I9 

ens; nor Legare, the distinguished scholar; nor Preston, the 
famous orator; nor Petigru, the great lawyer; nor Sims, the great 
physirian, who began in Alabama that career which brought him 
world-wide fame, and honors from the crowned heads of Europe. 

AN EXCELLENT WORK FOR ANTIQUARIANS. 

It tells US nothing of McDuffie, the statesman and splendid ora- 
tor, but it gives half a column to one Maudonius, a deacon who 
lived in Constantinople about 1,500 years ago; it gives four lines 
in fine print in an obscure foot-note to Rutledge, the patriot, 
statesman, orator and jurist, who was such a potent factor in de- 
termining the destiny of this great country, and over two columns 
in big print to Claudius Namatianus Rutilius, who appears to have 
written a Latin poem about 1,500 years ago; it says nothing of Ed- 
mund Pendleton, of Virginia, — said by Jefferson to have been the 
ablest man in debate he ever met, but it devotes over three columns 
to a painter named Pinturicchio, who lived before Columbus dis- 
covered America; and it gives so much space to an English poet 
named Drayton, who lived some hundreds of years ago, that it has 
no room for any mention whatever of the celebrated Carolina 
patriot, statesman and jurist of that name. 

It is not to be denied that the Britannica is an excellent work 
for antiquarians. 



THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 



IV. 



What sort of Cyclopedia for Americans is it that finds plenty of 
room for telling about an English comedy writer named Ran- 
dolph, who lived about three hundred years ago, but no room at 
all for such statesmen as Peyton Randolph and Edmund Ran- 
dolph; nor for George Wythe, the eminent jurist, "the honor of 
his own and the model of future times;" nor for any one of the 
Tuckers, that family of scholars, statesmen, jurists and soldiers; 
nor for Gary, the intrepid patriot; nor for (riles, the accomplished 
debater and parliamentary tactician; nor for Henry Lee, soldier, 
orator, statesman, — the "Light-Horse Harry" of the Revolution, 
and father of the immortal Robert E. Lee? That is just the kind 
of Gyclopedia the Britannica is. It finds room for but two of all 
of the illustrious family of Lee, but you would never know, from 
its sketch of Richard Henry Lee, that he was ever President of 
the Continental Congress of America. 

Upon what principle of cyclopedia-making did the authors of 
the Britannica proceed when they gave an article over a column 
long to "Harvard" College and none at all to "William and 
Mary," the college that gave Washington his first commission and 
public employment and the opportunity for developing his genius, 
— that claims for her children five of the seven signers of the Dec- 
laration of Independence from Virginia, — the college among 
whose children were "Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, 
and Wythe, his preceptor; Peyton Randolph, too, the president of 
the First Congress, and Edmund Randolph, the first Attorney 
General and Secretary of State and one of the wisest of the 
framers of our Constitution; and James Monroe, President of the 
United States; then John Marshall, the great Chief Justice; John 
Tyler, Federal judge, Governor of Virginia (and father of another 
of her worthy sons, President Tyler), who instituted the first 
measures for the convention to frame our Constitution in place of 
that of the Confederation; John Taylor, of Caroline; the Elands, 
the Pages, the Nicholases, the Burwells, the Grymeses, the Lewises, 
the Lyons, the Mercers, the Cockes, the Boilings, the Nicholsons, 
and Carringtons, and a long list of others almost as eminent, and 
quite as worthy, whose names are 'familiar in our mouths as house- 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 21 

hold words,' were of the number she had trained for the service of 
the country prior to the Revolution, to say nothing of the hosts of 
others since that time, trained in her sacred groves, who went 
from her to impress themselves on the society and institutions of 
the land, as grave and worthy judges, eloquent and able advo- 
cates, brave warriors on land and sea, faithful and honorable men 
in every station"?'^ Well has it been said of "William and Mary," 
by the same distinguished speaker whom I have just quoted, 
that "the influence of her sons sent out since the Revolution and 
before the late war, on the society and institutions of our country, 
would alone establish her claims as one of the most glorious, suc- 
cessful, and beneficent of the colleges of America." 

But "William and Mary," the patron of Washington, the Alma 
Mater of Jefferson, and the Randolphs, and Monroe, and Mar- 
shall, is not deemed worthy of an article in the Encyclopedia 
Britannica. 

When an intelligent American sees the number and sort of for- 
eign subjects to which the Britannica devotes so much space, how 
can he help being astonished on finding in it no articles on such 
historic characters as Francis Asbury — the first bishop of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church ordained in the United States, to 
whose labors, more than to any other human cause, Methodism in 
xA.merica owes its excellent organization and wonderful growth; 
and Thomas Coke; and Jesse Lee, of Virginia — whose labors in 
New England earned him the title of the "Apostle of Methodism;" 
and James O. Andrew — on whose social relations began the divis- 
ion of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America; and Joshua 
Soule — that man of giant intellect and heroic mould, the senior 
bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church South; and Samuel 
Harris — the "apostle of Virginia," a name to be held in everlasting 
remembrance by the Baptist brotherhood; and Samuel Davies — 
founder of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia; and Moses 
Stuart — the father of biblical learning in America; and John 
Carroll — the ardent and powerful friend of American liberty and 
the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in the United 
States; and Archbishop Hughes — that courageous and powerful 
champion of his church; and Bishop England — name especially 
dear to the people of Charleston and South Carolina; and Alexan- 

1. Address of Henry C. Semple to the Society of the Alumni of William and Mary 
College, July 4th, 1890. 



22 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

der Campbell, founder of the church of "The Disciples of Christ"? 
These were colossal figures in the religious life of America, but 
not an article on any one of them is to be found in the Britannica. 
But it gives us swarms of English and other foreign preachers and 
small theologians. 

JOHN WESLEY. 

Two statements of the Britannica are so remarkable for their 
display of ignorance and narrow prejudice as to deserve a para- 
graph to themselves right here. They are, first", that "John Wesley 
was not the author of any original hymns," and, second, that "Wes- 
ley has no claims to rank as a thinker, or even as a theologian"! 

That is what the Britannica says of the man of whom Macaulay 
wrote: "He was a m*an whose eloquent and logical acuteness 
might have rendered him eminent in literature; whose genius Tor 
government was not inferior to that of Richelieu"! 

ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LINE. 

Why has the Britannica omitted from its pages the names of 
such distinguished Americans as William R. King, conspicuous 
for nearly fifty years in the public life of this country, as repre- 
sentative and senator in congress, foreign minister and vice-presi- 
dent; and Hugh L. White, whose name is so intimately and hon- 
orably associated with many of the most memorable events of 
American history; and John M. Berrien, "the Cicero of the 
American senate;" and William C. Rives, senator and foreign 
minister and author; and John Forsyth, senator, foreign minister and 
secretary of state;^ and William Wirt, so distinguished as lawyer, 
orator, and man of letters — for twelve years Attorney-General of the 
United States; and William Pinkney, the great lawyer and orator, 
who was cabinet officer, foreign minister and senator; and Stephen 
Decatur, the most celebrated commander of his time in the 
American navy, whose daring and efficiency challenged the at- 
tention and admiration of the civilized world, and whose tragic 
and untimely death plunged this whole country into mourning? 
The fame of these men is co-extensive with the Republic, but not 
an article on one of them is to be found in the Britannica! Two 
of them were born in that very North Carolina to which the 

1. By hi8 genius, cuKure, courteous dcpnrtment, and his unrivalled eltxiuence, even 
from young manhood he was a favorite df tue pei>iile, and lieeame the most tjrilliant 
light of .laekson's administration. It is pri'liable that tht' State ((Jeorgia) never had i 
mau so variously gifted as Forsyth. — Richttrd Mnlralni Jdhnstan. 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 23 

Britannica specially points in proof of its charge of the barbarism 
of the South. Why are they all left out of the Britannica's bio- 
graphical department? Is it because they did not hail from Mas- 
sachusetts — that State whose "thinkers," says the Britannica, 
"outnumber all those born south of Mason and Dixon's line since 
the Revolution" — that State, connection with which has saved the 
South "from sinking to the level of Mexico or the Antilles"? 

If the author of that unrivaled lyric, "My Life is like the Sum- 
mer Rose," had dwelt in Massachusetts, the Britannica would 
doubtless have contained a notice of him, but as he lived in that 
barbarous region south of Mason and Dixon's line, the Britannica 
knows not of him. Yet Richard Henry Wilde was eminent as 
lawyer, orator and statesman, as well as poet. On Zachary Taylor 
it has seventeen lines, but of "Tape-Worms" it has thirteen solid 
columns, and on "Trematoda" it is full and thrilling in the ex- 
treme, as, for instance, where it tells us that "all Trematoda have 
been commonly regarded as devoid of a body-cavity, and as con- 
sisting of parenchymatous tissue, but that recent researches show 
that the intercellular spaces in this tissue are to be regarded as the 
homologue of a coelom." This is highly important if true, as the 
papers used to say of news from the front during the war, and the 
clear, intelligible language in which it is expressed cannot fail of 
appreciation by any person rejoicing in the possession of the 
Britannica. It manages to publish seven columns on Texas 
without ever telling what city is the capital of the State, and 
without any allusion to Moses and Stephen F. Austin, or to the 
Alamo, that American Thermopylae, where Bowie, and Crockett, 
and Travis, and their comrades met death and covered themselves 
and the American name with undying glory. If the Alamo had 
been on Massachusetts or English soil, would it have been thus 
totally ignored by the Britannica? Rather, in that case, would not 
a few "Tape-Worms" and "Trematoda" have been sacrified, if 
necessary, to make room for some notice of the hundred and fifty 
heroes who' for ten days held four thousand foemen at bay, and, 
like the Old Guard at Waterloo, died at last but never surren- 
dered? Room is found in the Britannica for a special and sepa- 
rate article on "Concord" and the small skirmish that occurred 
there with little loss of life; but no such room for the Alamo and 
its devoted band of immortals; nor for King's Mountain; nor 



24 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

Guilford Court-house; nor Yorktown, memorable for two sieges, 
the first of which resulted in the capture of an entire British army 
and the achievement of American independence, and the last of 
which occurred during the late war between the State?, when the 
Confederate army was besieged thereby the Union army. In 
such a complete, all-round, all-over-the-world, lay-over-everything 
cyclopedia as the Britannica claims to be, shouldn't Yorktown 
have at least as prominent a place as Concord ? 

But I was forgetting that Yorktown, and Guilford Court-House, 
and King's Mountain, and the Alamo, like William and Mary Col- 
lege, are on the Britannica's barbarous side of Mason and Dixon's 
line; while Concord, — Concord is in Massachusetts, the Britan- 
nica's favorite spot of American earth. 

It has nothing at all about — but why go on with the long list of 
historic names and places of the South of which the Britannica 
takes no note? Neither time nor space will permit it here, for 
their name is legion. Has not enough been said to show its 
amazing and culpable deficiency in this respect? 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 25 



V. 



Is it necessary to add, in farther proof of the Britannica's ani- 
mus towards the South, that, though it finds noplace in its twenty- 
four huge volumes for William R. King or William L. Yancey, it 
gives ample room to John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison? 
That it puts Webster, Seward and Sumner down as "statesmen," 
and Calhoun and Clay as "politicians," merely? That, while it has 
no article on Jefferson Davis, it finds occasion to allude disparag- 
ingly to him? That it has no article on the Confederate States, 
but alludes to them incidentally in the article purporting to be a 
history of the United States, and, among many other misstate- 
ments, says that there were 700,000 soldiers in the Confederate 
armies at the beginning of 1863 (while the truth is, they did not have 
that many during the whole period of the war)? That it says 
that where the whites of the Southern States failed to gain politi- 
cal control by bribery and threats, they resorted to whipping and 
arson and murder? It does indeed say these thing?, and much 
more in the same vein; and discriminates against the South in its 
biographies in the manner stated, all of which no doubt greatly 
delights the Hoars and the Lodges, the Shermans and the (Chand- 
lers, and those of their ilk, who are so fond of describing the 
South as still being in the twilight of civilization — still a land of 
semi-barbarous people. They can quote, you see, the Encyclope- 
dia Britannica to prove the justness of their description. The 
Britannica is a very popular book in Massachusetts. 

ITS EXPOSITION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

The person who goes to the Encyclopedia Britannica for in- 
struction as to the nature of the Government of the United States 
will receive a totally erroneous impression concerning it. He will 
read there the dogmatic assertion that "it was the people of the 
whole United States" (that is, in the aggregate,) "that established 
the Constitution." This, of course, is a wholly untrue and alto- 
gether absurd assertion, directly in conflict with indisputable pub- 
lic records, and plainly disproved by the last clause of the 
Constitution itself, in these words: "The ratification of the con- 
ventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of 



26 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same." "If 
this were a consolidated government," said Henry Lee in the Vir- 
ginia Convention that was considering the question of ratifying 
the Constitution, — "If this were a consolidated government, ought 
it not to be ratified by a majority of the people as individuals, and 
not as States? Suppose Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts and 
Pennsylvania had ratified it; these four States, being a majority of 
the people of America, would, by their adoption, have made it 
binding on all the States, had this been a consolidated govern- 
ment." 

As it neither was nor could have been established by a majority 
vote of the people of the whole United States, so neither can it be 
changed by a majority vote of the people. As it could be estab- 
lished only by the votes of nine of the original thirteen States, 
acting as States in convention assembled, so neither, can it be 
changed unless three-fourths of the States, through their legisla- 
tures or conventions, consent that it shall be changed. No mere 
majority vote, either of the people or of the States, established or 
could have established the Constitution. Without the approval 
and ratification of nine of the thirteen States, it would have been 
of no more consequence than the paper on which it was written. 
No mere majority vote, either of the people or of the States, can 
change or amend it. A proposed amendment must be approved 
and ratified by three-fourths of the States in the manner above 
named before it is of any more consequence than the paper on 
which it is written. 

THE BRITANNICA VERSUS JEFFERSON DAVIS, ALEXANDER H. STE- 
PHENS, AND JAMES MADISON. 

If the Britannica's statement were true, the votes of a majority 
of the people in the thirteen States would have established the 
Constitution over all. But against that statement let me oppose 
the words of Jefferson Davis, an American statesman and histo- 
rian. Mr. Davis says: "The Constitution was never submitted to 
the people of the United States in the aggregate, or as a people. 
No such political community as the people of the United States 
exists or ever did exist. There has never been any such thing as 
a vole of 'the people of the United States in the aggregate;' no 
such people is recognized by the Constitution; no such political 
community has ever existed. * * * The monstrous fiction 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 27 

that they acted as one people 'in their aggregate capacity' has not 
an atom of fact to serve as a basis." (Rise and Fall of the Con- 
federate Government, vol. i, chapters 2, 3, and 4.) 

Alexander H. Stephens, another American statesman and histo- 
rian, says: "The Constitution was submitted to the States for 
their approval and ratification, and not to the people of the whole 
country, in the aggregate, and it was agreed to and ratified by the 
States as States, and not by the people of all the States in one 
aggregate mass." (The War Between the States, vol. i. Col. 4.) 

James Madison was the fourth President of the United States, 
and is called "the father of the Constitution" from the fact that it 
is more his work than that of any other one man. Writing of it 
prior to its adoption by the number of States necessary to estab- 
lish it, he said: "That the ratification of the Constitution will be 
a federal and not a national act is obvious from this single con- 
sideration, that it is to result neither from the decision of a 
majority of the people of the Union nor from that of a majority of 
the States. It must result from the unanimous assent of the sev- 
eral States that are parties to it." (The Federalist, xxxix.) 

Now, where is the truth concerning the Constitution and the 
nature of this Government most likely to be found, — in the British 
Cyclopedia, or in the writings of such American statesmen as 
Davis, Stephens and Madison ? 

THIS IS NOT A GOVERNMENT OF A MAJORITY OF THE WHOLE 

PEOPLE. 

The Britannica abounds in statements as misleading as the one 
just so overwhelmingly refuted, the pernicious purport of them all 
being that this is a national government instead of a "federal" one, 
as Mr. Madison called it; — that it is a government of the people 
of this cou! try as one nation instead of a federation of States; — 
that it is a government formed and ruled by the vote of a majority 
of the mass — a majority of the whole people of the Union. If this 
were so, — if it were true that this is a government of a majority of 
the whole people, Grover Cleveland would now be President of 
the United States, instead of Benjamin Harrison, for Cleveland 
got 100,000 more votes than Harrison. If it were so, Ruther- 
ford B, Hayes would not have been President, for there was a 
majority of more than 300,000 against him in the election of 1876. 



28 THE ERITANNICA ANSWERED, 

If it were so, Abraham Lincoln would not have been President, 
for nearly a million more votes were cast against him than were 
cast for him in the election of i860. If it were so, neither John 
Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, nor James Buchanan would have 
been President, for Adams had 50,000 less of the popular vote 
than Jackson; Taylor had 50,000 less than half the popular vote; 
and Buchanan had 200,000 less than half the popular vote. But 
it is not so. As little as any other is this a government of a 
majority of the mass. 

This disposes of the Britannica's dictum as to the Constitution, 
and its teachings as to the nature of our Government, and exposes 
the fallacy of the saying that this is "a Government of the people, 
by the people, for the people." The quotations I have given 
from Davis, Stephens, Henry Lee and Madison, and from the 
Constitution itself, as well as the whole history of its formation 
and Its daily working, show that this Government was made by 
States, of States, for States ;— that it is not an empire of provinces, 
but a federated republic, composed of independent States.^ 

1. In the case of Ware vs. Hilton (3 Dallas, p. 224) the Sunreme Court of the United 
States, Justice Chase delivering the opinion, decided that when the Continental Con- 
gress declared the Thirteen United Colonies free and independent States, it was "a 
declaration, noc that the I nited Coloaies, jointly, in a collective capacity, were inde- 
p-nd3nt States, etc., but that each of them was "a sovereign and independent State." 
See Addendum C. 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 29 



VI. 

With its characteristic dogmatism, and true to the monarchical 
spirit that pervades it, the Britannica says that Alexander Hamil- 
ton was the ablest American jurist and statesman. It is not at all 
surprising to find in the Britannica such an estimate as that, of the 
American who called democracy "a disease." Most foreign 
writers have this opinion of Hamilton, because of his anti-Demo- 
cratic, monarchical tendencies, but, per contra, Justice Bradley, 
of the United States Supreme Court, says: "The opinions of 
Marshall are the standard authority on constitutional questions. 
In crystalline clearness of thought, irrefragable logic, and a wide 
and statesmanlike view of all questions of public consequence he 
has had no superior in this or any other country;" and Alexander 
H. Stephens, in his writings, says: "Of all the statesmen in this 
country, none ever excelled Mr. Jefferson in grasp of political 
ideas, and a thorough understanding of the principles of human 
government;" and Prof. John Fiske, the accomplished scholar 
and historian, who has made the history of this Government the 
subject of his special study, says that Madison "was superior to 
Hamilton in sobriety and balance of powers," and adds the well 
known fact that the Government was more Madison's work than 
that of any other one man. 

Here we have the Britannica on one side, and an eminent 
American jurist, a distinguished American statesman, and a 
learned American author on the other. Justice Bradley says 
Hamilton was' not an abler jurist than Marshall, Mr. Stephens 
says he was not an abler statesman than Jefferson, and Prof. 
Fiske says Madison was his superior in sobriety and balance of 
powers. Is not this, to say the least of it, calculated to shake 
somewhat the faith of the Britannica worshipers in the infallibility 
of their big literary fetish? As to Hamilton, I suspect the truth 
is that the world will never know how much he is indebted for his 
reputation to the superior judgment and wise counsel of Philip 
Schuyler, his father-in-law. 

DID HE "retire WITH DIGNITY"? 

When it comes to American history the Britannica seems to 
have the knack of being found directly opposed by well estab- 



30 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

lished facts and the liighest American authorities. Take, for in- 
stance, the statement in its article on John Adams that "he" 
(Adams) retired with dignity to his native place," after his de- 
feat in the Presidential election of 1800; whereas the truth is that 
he retired in a huff — in a very undignified manner — so mad that 
he didn't stay in Washington to see the inauguration of his suc- 
cessor, with whom he had no intercourse for thirteen years after- 
ward. 

IT GOES WRONG ON "tHE FEDERALIST." 

In its article on American Literature the Britannica alludes to 
"The Federalist" as a newspaper — calling it "ihe organ of the 
anti-Democratic party;" whereas it is well known to those familiar 
with x\merican literature that "The Federalist" is the name of a 
book composed of articles on the Constitution by certain dis- 
tinguished American statesmen. It is the most famous American 
political text book, and if the authors of the Britannica had 
studied it properly they would not have displayed such ignorance 
as they have in regard to this Government. 

IT BLUNDERS ABOUT JEFFERSON. 

In its article on Thomas Jefferson the Britannica says that he 
was the author of the ordinance passed by Congress for the gov- 
ernment of the North-west Territory, containing the provision 
that there should be no slavery, after the year 1800, in any State 
organized from that territory. That is what the Britannica says, 
but the fact is that Thomas Jefferson was not in the United States 
when that ordinance was passed. He was residing in Paris as 
minister to the French court at that time (1787), and George 
Ticknor Curtis, Alexander H. Stephens, and Daniel Webster, and 
other high American authorities say that Nathan Dane was the 
author of that ordinance. (See Ticknor's Constitutional History 
of the United States, vol. I, p. 549; Stephens's War Between the 
States, vol. I, p. 512; Webster's Works, vol. Ill, p. 263, 8th ed.) 
Here again we have the foreign cyclopedia refuted by distin- 
guished American statesmen and historians. 

IT TELLS WHAT "lED TO THE WAR OF '6 I." 

In further reference in the same article to the North-west Ter- 
ritory, the Britannica says: "It was the attempt to organize 
States from this territory in defiance of this restriction (as to 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 3 I 

slavery) that led to the war of 1861." This is the worst yet. 
What was called the North-west Territory was the territory be- 
tween the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, now comprised in the 
States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin — 
which, as I have before stated, was ceded to the United 
States by Virginia; and it was, according to the Britannica's state- 
ment in its article on Jefferson, the attempt to organize tl^ese 
States in violation of law that led to the war of 1861 ! This is 
even worse than the statement elsewhere in this same encyclope- 
dia that, during that war, the Northern cavalry traversed the 
Southern high roads on bicycles and tricycles!^ Really, the Brit- 
annica writers should have consulted some of the school-boys and 
girls of Montgomery in the preparation of its articles on American 
history. 

IT MISREPRESENTS TILDEN. 

The Britannica says that Mr. Tilden consented to the creation 
of the electoral commission for deciding the disputed result of 
the presidential election of 1876. This is another reminder of 
the old saying about going from home to learn the news. No- 
body on this side of the Atlantic ever heard Mr. Tilden consent 
that the result of that election should be determined in any way 
not prescribed by the Constitution, but here comes a cyclopedia 
from a foreign land three thousand miles away, with the informa- 
tion that he did so consent. Where did the big foreign literary 
fetish get its information on this point? The fact is that Mr. Til- 
den was opposed to having an electoral commission to decide the 
result of that election. 

A LESSON IN GEOGRAPHY. 

The Britannica says: "The Chattahoochee river is navigable 
from Macon to the Gulf of Mexico during the greater part of the 
year," (See article on Columbus, Georgia.) Now the fact is that 
the Chattahoochee river is not navigable from Macon during tlie 
greater part of the year. The fact is that it is not navigable from 

1. Commenting on this statement and others of the same character in the Britannica, 
the Atlanta Constitution said: "There is something attractive about these bold and 
dashing statements. They pique the reader's curiosity. When the siern troopers of 
Custer and Kilpatrick trundled along on their bicycles through Virginia and 
Georgia h is plain that they must have found a better system of country roads than we 
know anyihing about. This fact alone is sufficiently puzzling, but when we reflect 
that bicycles were not in use until several years after the close of the war, the matter 
assumes a very interesting aspect. How did the federal cavalry get hold of bicycles 
ten years in advance of their fellow-citizens? But we can not pursue the subject. •■■ 
=■= * The description of American military methods is as good as anything thai Jules 
Verne has ever written . " 



32 THE HRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

Macon during any part of the year. Indeed, the fact is that the 
Chattahoochee river is not at nor near Macon at all. Beyond all 
question the authors of the Britannica made a very great mistake 
in not consulting some Alabama or Georgia school-boy or girl in 
the preparation of its articles touching American history, geog- 
raphy, etc. If they had done so the Britannica would certainly 
have contained something about Birmingham, Alabama, and an 
article on Austin, Texas, to say nothing of Brunswick, Georgia. 

"hamlet" without hamlet. 

To write a history of Alabama with no mention of Bienville is 
like playing Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out, and ye't this 
is just what the authors of the Britannica have done. The reader 
of its article on Alabama would never learn from that article that 
such a man as Bienville — whose name is so closely interwoven 
with the history of the settlement of this great State — ever lived, 
nor could the reader find in that cyclopedia any article on Bien- 
ville. He would find one, though, on a person by the name of 
Bilfinger, who appea's to have been a privy councillor to a duke 
or something of the sort some hundred and fifty years ago, and 
who wrote a treatise entitled ''Dilucidationes Philosophies, De 
Deo, Anima Humana Mundo," etc. The Britannica authors 
evidently didn't think it worth while to give space for an article 
on Bienville, the brave soldier and explorer, the settler of States 
and founder of cities; nor of James Blair, the founder, and for 
fifty years the president of the second college in America, but 
they didn't intend to get left on Bilfinger — a duke's privy coun- 
cillor and the writer of a Latin treatise. Never! Perish Bien- 
ville; let the founder and guiding genius of the Alma Mater of 
statesmen and sages sink into oblivion, but live Bilfinger ! 

IT GETS there ON "aMPHIBIA." 

But if the Britannica is short on Alabama — to which it gives only 
a page and a half, it "^ets there" in great shape on "Amphibia," 
to which it devotes twenty-two pages, from which we glean 
the very interesting and useful information that "the ganglion of 
the glossopharyngeal nerve appears to coalesce with that of the 
vagus;" and that "the vagus or pneumogastric, in the perenni- 
branchiate Amphibia, supplies the second and third branchia, and 
the cucullaris muscle." It also gives the highly gratifying assur- 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. ^^ 

ance that "the parietofrontals, nasals, premaxillai, maxillae, squa- 
mosals, palatines, pterygoids, and parasphenoids, the dentary and 
angulo-opercular bones, may be removed without injury to the 
chondochranium ." As the rest of ihis extremely entertaining 
treatise is in the same limpid and fascinating style that distin- 
guishes the foregoing extracts, it would be superfluous to state 
that no family should be without the Britannica's article on Am- 
phibia. 

AND IT IS SOLID ON ARACHNIDA ,I\IOLLUSCA, ORTHORHOPHA, ETC. 

It is nothing more than fair, too, after all that has been said, to 
add that the Encyclopedia Britannica is made up, in very great 
part, of articles quite similar to the one on Amphibia. — that is, 
similar in respect fo the absorbing interest of the themes treated, 
the diamond-like lucidity ot the language in which they are 
couched, and the great practical value — the every- day usefulness 
— to so many people of the information they impart. Such, for 
instance, are its sixty-eight columns on Crustacea, its fifty-eight 
columns on Arachnida, its one hundred and sixty- three columns 
on Infinitesimal Calculus, and its long treatises on Mollusca, Or- 
thorhopha, Cyclorhapha, Nematocera, BibronicC, PsychodidK, 
etc. And surely there is not one among those who possess the 
Britannica who has not read over and over again, and each time 
with renewing rapture, its hundred and thirty columns on Ichthy- 
ology, abounding with such widely interesting and indispensable 
information as this: "In the Teleosteous fishes the spinous col- 
umn consists of completely ossified amphicoelous vertebrte; its 
termination is homocercal. The Polypteroidei have their spinous 
column formed by distinct osseous amphicoelous vertebrae, and is 
nearly diphycercal. " Clearly, nobody should goa-fishing without 
the Britannica volume with the article on Ichthyology. 

What matters it that this Encyclopedia defames the South? 
And totally ignores many of her greatest sons? And makes so 
many false statements concerning the history of this country, and 
is so lacking generally in American subjects, and so defective in 
those it does profess to treat? What, matters all this? Isn't it 
solid on England and things English, you know? And on Ichthy- 
ology, and the Wave Theory of Light, and Hydromechanics, and 
Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, and Claudius Namatianus Ru- 
tilius — and Bilfinger? 



34 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 



VII. 

Not only is it true that but for the genius, patriotism and valor 
of Southern men the United States could not have won their in- 
dependence in the War of the Revolution, — that the bond which 
afterwards bound the States together in a Federal Union was 
chiefly the creation of Southern statesmanship, — that the subse- 
quent enlargement of the Union to a size twice as great as its 
original dimensions was the achievement of Southern statesman- 
ship and valor, — that it was a Southern statesman whose patriot- 
ism twice saved it from impending dissolution, — not only are all 
these things true, but it is also true that without the South's con- 
tribution to the Union cause during the war between the States, 
that cause would have been "the lost cause." 

The history of that war shows that many of the bravest and 
most distinguished soldiers and officers of the Union army and 
navy were Southern men. The President of the United States 
during that war was a man of Southern birth and lineage. But 
for Andrew Johnson, a Southern man, who was Vice-President 
under Lincoln, Tennessee would have been lost to the Union, and 
but for Francis P Blair, a Southern man who was a general in the 
Union army, Missouri would, in all likelihood, have joined the 
Confederacy.^ It was General George H. Thomas, of Virginia, 
who stood like a rock between the Union army and destruction 
at Chickamauga, and at Chattanooga and Mission Ridge dealt the 
Confederacy blows from which it never recovered. The same 
general had previously saved the Union army at Mill Springs and 
Murfreesboro, and shattered Hood's army to pieces at Nashville. 
A distinguished Confederate has said that those two Southern 

]. Mr. L. E. Chittenden, who was Register of the T'nited State.s Treasury during the 
war between the Stales, has ri cently published a liook entitle I "Recolleci'ons of Mr. 
l.iueoln," in which he says that one of the most critii al p- riods in the existence of 
the Union was the day appointed f r the official couni of the Presidential vote of liSOO, 
which look place in the {)rcst nee of both Houses of Congress on Feljruary i:;. 1)-01. 
Mr. Chittenden ass( ris that this was a moment of imminent danger to the Ini n. for 
it was, he says the day appointed for the seizure of Washington and the accomplish- 
ment of a revolutiin by arn.ed bodies of men hostile to the inauguration of Lincoln, 
and determined upon preventing, in that way, the coijnt ng of the vote: and he de- 
clares that he believed at the time, and has never siu-e doubted, that the country was 
indeV'ted for ;h»- ])eaccfiil count of the electoral vote, for the tiroclitmation of the elec- 
tion of Mr. Lincoli', and for the su)i;ires-ion of the revolution projected for that day, 
to Mo.ior-Gentral Scott and Vice-1'res. dent Breckenridge. Coumienii' g "■>! this, the 
New York Sun snvs: "It is as^surfdly a euiions fact, if fact it be, that two men, boih 
Southern born, should, on Feb. 13, 1^61, have carried the republic safely tlrough one 
of the most imminent perils that ever threatened its existence." 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 35 

men — Andrew Johnson and George H. Thomas — dug the grave 
of the Confederacy. 

It was General Nelson, a Southern man in the Union army, who 
first came to Grant's relief at Shiloh, and saved him from destruc- 
tion there; Newton, a Virginian, commanded the first corps of the 
Union army at Gettysburg, and was afterwards chief of engineers 
of the United States army; and we have General Sherman's word 
for it that "one of the chief causes of Lee's surrender was the 
skillful, hard march, the night before, of the troops under General 
Ord," another Southern man in the Union army. The standard 
work on ordnance in the United States army during the war be- 
tween the States was by a Southern man — Laidley, of Virginia. 
Besides those named there were many other distinguished soldiers 
in the Union army who were Southern men; and its surgeon-gen- 
eral was a Southern man. 
. Admiral Farragut, the greatest naval commander on the Union 
side, was a Southern man; fo was his fleet-captain and chief-of- 
staff, his fleet-engineer, and his fleet-surgeon. The commander of 
his flag ship in the battle of Mobile Bay was a Drayton, of South 
Carolina; and the ship selected to accompany his flag-ship in that 
battle was commanded by a Southern man. The blockade vessel 
that captured more prizes than any other during the war was 
commanded by a Southerner; a Southerner commanded the mon- 
itor that captured the Confederate iron-clad in Warsaw Sound; it 
was a Southern officer in the United States navy who, at Pensa- 
cola, performed what Admiral Porter says was, without doubt, the 
most gallant cutting-out affair that occurred during the war, and 
of whom Mr. Greeley makes special complimentary mention in 
his history, and to whom Mr. Lincoln personally expressed his 
gratitude;^ the commander of the iron-clad division of the fleet at 
the attack on Fort Fisher — to whom, more than to any other 
officer, was due the capture of that fort — was a Virginian; and a 
North Carolinian commanded the ship that sunk the Alabama, 
the famous Confederate vessel commanded by Raphael Semmes. 

Finally, there were in the Union armies more than 300,000 men 

from the Southern or slave-holding States, exclusive of the more than 

200,000 negroes who were taken from their Southern owners and 

mustered into the military service of the Union; — making in all 

1. John H. Russell, of Maryland. 



;^6 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

more than half a million men the United States Government had 
from the South itself with which to fight the Confederacy — largely 
more than half the entire number of troops in the Confederate 
armies. 

Verily, in all truthfulness might it be written of the dead Con- 
federacy, — 

" 'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, 

And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low: 
So the struck eagle, siretch'd upon the plait-, 

No more through n-Uing clouds to soar again, 
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, 

And v\ing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart; 
Keen were his paiigr., but keener far to feel 

He nursed the jjiuion that impell'd the steel." 



And now I must take leave of the Encyclopedia Britannica. 
An enumeration of all its sins of commission and omission in its 
various departments — scientific as well as historical and literary — 
would fill a volume of itself and require more tirne than I have at 
my disposal for that purpose. 

My object has been chiefly to vindicate the South from its out- 
rageous aspersion, and therefore I have not dwelt .upon its grave 
defects in other directions, prominent among which is the fact that 
it contains no notice of any living person. History, without our 
contemporaries, is only half history; and it is simply ridiculous to 
claim completeness as a cyclopedia for a work that has not biog- 
raphies of the very men whose deeds, in one form or another, 
attract the greatest amount of general attention, but no biogra- 
phies are to be found in the Britannica of Bismarck, Moltke, 
Gladstone, Kossuth, Huxley, Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, 
Tennyson, Edwin Arnold, Swinburne, Browning, Castelar, 
Carnot, Cleveland, Blaine, or any man or woman now living any- 
where in the world. Commenting on this omission of these and 
other prominent characters, "The Nation" has aptly said: "To 
present history without them is a task which lies well beyond the 
abilities of the editor-in-chief and his assistant corps of editors." 
A striking instance of this defect was brought to my attention re- 
cently by a gentleman who said that when news came of the death 
of General Joseph E. Johnston he went to his Britannica to obtain 
some particular information about the dead general, and failed to 
find there anything about him. As General Johnston didn't die 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 37 

before the publication of that volume of the Britannica which 
treats of names beginning with the letter "J," no notice of him is in 
that cyclopedia. So, there is no article in it on Beaconsfield 
(D'Israeli), or Carlyle, or Darwin, or George Eliot, or Victor Hugo, 
or Gambetta, or Garibaldi, or Jules Favre, or George Bancroft, or 
Jefferson Davis, or Robert Toombs, or Howell Cobb, or Benjamin 
H. Hill; or the poets, — Timrod, Hayne, Ryan and Lamer. As 
Margaret J. Preston and James R. Randall — two of America's 
most gifted poets — are still alive, of course no information at all 
about them is to be had from the Britannica. 

WHAT HE THOUGHT HE \VAS GETTING, AND WHAT HE REALLY 

DID GET. 

Of course the gentleman who failed to find in his Britannica the 
information he wanted about General Johnston was greatly disap- 
pointed, not to say disgusted. He got the Britannica under the 
impression that he was getting a coviplete cyclopedia — one that 
was fuller, more thorough, more accurate — one that would tell 
him more about more things and leave less to be desired in the 
.way of general information than all other cyclopedias combined. 
The publishers and the agent told him it was that kind of a cyclo- 
pedia, and showed him some remarks to the same effect from some 
English and Northern (probably Massachusetts) papers, and he 
bought it, and now finds that — instead of having a really useful 
book of reference, such as is suited to the every-day educational 
needs of American people — he has a collection of elaborate scien- 
tific and technical treatises and discussions, philosophical and 
metaphysical disquisitions, and abstruse ethical essays, where 
frequently for entire pages the meaning of no two consecu- 
tive Imes can be comprehended by the average college graduate, 
not to say the ordinary reader, and much of which is of no more 
value to the great mass of readers than a Chinese almanac would 
be. Strike out its surplusage of long, labored treatises, formulas, 
and useless and unreadable portions, and the Britannica can be 
embraced in less than sixteen volumes, For instance, in one of 
its volumes, which contains 856 pages, 47 1 of those pages are filled 
with treatises on nine subjects. Of course this method of con- 
struction renders it of little value as a book to be consulted for 
information about the most of the subjects which are essential to 
the general reader, and for which a cyclopedia is most frequently 



38 THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

and most profitably consulted. Those long treatises do not leave 
room enough for the subjects in which the great majority of peo- 
ple are most interested. 

As the Britannica devotes no space to living people, one would 
naturally expect to find in it information about more of those who 
are not living than in cyclopedias that include both. But such is 
not the case. Other cyclopedias not only tell us of the thinkers 
and actors who are making hi^tory and shaping the destinies of 
nations and States to-day, but they tell us of a great many more 
of the world's distinguished dead than the Britannica tells of. 

Another instance of its lack of readily accessible information on 
topics of living interest may be ciied in the case of the editor of a 
leading journal who was expressing his disappointment at not 
finding in his Britannica any articles on "The Latin Union," the 
"Monetary Commission of the United States Congress," the "In- 
ternational Monetary Conference," and "Inter State Commerce." 
The truth is that the Britannica is, properly speaking, only a 
semi-cyclopedia. 

A GLANCE AT ITS EUROPEAN FIELD. 

It is not within the purview of this writing to follow the Britan- 
nica into other fields than that which I have been specially 
reviewing; otherwise I should comment on the absence from its 
pages of biographies of such historic characters as Berthier, Ber- 
trand, Bessierts, Brune, Caulaincourt. Cambronne, Davoust, 
Duroc, Grouchy, Mortier, — those soldiers of the French Republic 
and of the Empire under the great Napoleon who carried the 
eagles of France in triumph over so many battle fields and filled 
the world with the fame of their martial deeds; and the vicomte 
de Beauharnais, first husband of the empress Josephine; and 
Cadoudal, whom Bonaparte could not bribe with place or gold; 
and Bugeaud; and Bouille; and Rochambeau; and Bagration and 
Kutusow, the great Russian generals; and Biron, the Russian duke 
and regent whose career was so remarkable and thrilling; and the 
queens Brunehaut and Fredegonda, whose rivalries constitute a 
long, bloody and fateful episode in French history; and Bernardo 
del Carpio; and Catalani; and those world-famous heroines, Grace 
Darling, Florence Nightingale, and Flora McDonald; and Agnes 
Bernauer, whose unhappy love and pathetic fate plunged a coun- 
try into war; and Bealrice Portinari; and Behring, the famous 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 39 

navigator (Behring's strait); and Eric, the Norwegian adventurer; 
and Praise God Barebonts; and Jack Cade; and Blondcl, the hero 
of one of the most exquisitely romantic stories in literature; and 
Brian Boru (Boroimhe), the Irish hero immortalized in Tom 
Moore's words — "Remember the glories of Brian the brave." 
(We couldn't remember them if we depended on the Britannica 
for the knowledge of them ) 

I know it is astounding and almost incredible that, in an Ency- 
clopedia for which so much is claimed as is claimed for the 
Britannica, there are no articles on the characters here named, but 
it is a fact, nevertheless; and, after all, is it much stranger than that 
there is in the same cyclopedia no such title as "ThermopylEe," 
nor "Borodino," nor "Aspern," nor "Areola," nor "Campo For- 
mio," nor "Brienne," nor "Balaklava," nor — but I cannot follow 
it through the European field. Its defects in that field revealed 
by a cursory glance at the titles under the first few letters of the 
alphabet sufficiently indicate the proportions to which the list 
would grow under closer inspection from "A" to "Izzard," and 
• that would involve too wide a departure from the purpose of this 
writing, which is to vindicate the South from a great aspersion (as 
I have said), and to show that the book in which that aspersion is 
published is the last one that an American should get if what he 
wants is a book from which he can quickly and accurately inform 
himself on American history and geography, American biography 
and literature, and, in short, on all those subjects upon which nine 
hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand are most likely 
to want information in the daily affairs and conversation of life. 

WHAT A CYCLOPEDIA SHOULD BE. 

A cyclopedia, to fill the measure of the true signification of the 
term, should be a dictionary of general knowledge, so divided and 
classified that any desired fact or principle can be found with the 
greatest practicable facility, — an epitome of the most valuable 
knowledge, which can be easily consulted, readily understood, 
and p'omptly applied, without the toil of picking out a few grains 
of available gold from a discouraging mass of matter written for 
exclusively scientific readers, and of the most abstruse scientific 
character. This is ju^t what the Britannica is not. It is the very 
reverse of this, and is therefore of comparatively small value to 
all except masters in special departments of science or art, who 



4© THE BRITANNICA ANSWERED, 

have both the time and the ability to grapple with technical sub- 
tleties, obscure terminology, and intricate discussions. Its pub- 
lishers, though, in offering it for sale to the American people, as- 
sured them that it would be "thorough and accurate in the Ge- 
ography, History, and Institutions of America, and an authorita- 
tive book of reference for English-speaking communities in every 
quarter of the globe," and u])on the strength of this assurance 
they sold thousands of copies of the work throughout this coun- 
try. Do the facts sustain the representation upon which the pub- 
lishers sold it? Is it thorough and accurate on the Geography, 
History, and Institutions of America? If it is not, has not fraud 
been practiced, in the selling of it, by those who sold it upon 
those who bought it because of their faith in that representation? 

A GREAT IMPOSITION. 

The truth is that the sale of the Encyclopedia Britannica to the 
American people as the reference-book best suited to their wants 
is the greatest imposition, in the book-selling line, ever practiced 
upon a people. The low price for which it can now be had and 
the attempts at ".'\mericanizing" it are proofs of this truth. Long 
before the last volume of the cumbrous work had been delivered 
to the thousands who had been induced to subscribe for it, its 
worthlessness as a reference book for the people was manifest, and 
it had consequently become a drug on the market. Then the 
price began to fall, and kei)t falling till the Britannica could be 
had for half its former cos% but its inutility had by this time be- 
come still more widely known, and it still remained a drug. 
. As a last resort in the strenuous efforts to sell it, in one form or 
another, an "Americanized Briiannica"' is .•announced, and the 
publishers are placing it in the offices of newspapers, to be sold at 
one-fourth of the original cost of the Britannica, to every one who 
will at the sanie time subscribe for the paper that is selling it ! 
This is a shrewd device for keeping up a fast falling fabric, for of 
course the papers with which this arrangement is made proceed 
at once to pronounce it the best of all cyclopedias. It is "^trictly 
business" with them. Their object is to extend thtirown circula- 
tion, and as long as they can get a subscriber for themselves, and 
a handsome commission besides, for every copy of the Britannica 
they sell, they will of course "boom" the Britannica. But how 
are the mighty fallen! The much-vaunted "monarch of encyclo- 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 41 

pedias," from a hundred and twenty dollars down to thirty, and a 
newspaper thrown in! Which is the chromo, the paper or the 
Britannica? 

I have not seen the Britannica in this, its latest guise, but it is 
presumably the same old English dish, with more American trim- 
mings, but With the same venom in it towards the South, — the 
same venomous misrepresentation that has made the world at 
large regard the South as an ignorant, illiterate, semi-barbarous 
section of the American people, sunk in brutality and vice, that 
has contributed nothing to the advancement of mankind. If this 
is the case, — if this misrepresentation of the South is perpetuated 
in the so-called An>ericanized Britannica, then the publishers of 
the papers that are engaged in selling it — for profit to themselves 
— to the people of this country, should send a copy of this pam- 
phlet along with every copy of the cyclopedia they sell, so that the 
truth may go along with the falsehood — the antidote with the poi- 
son which they' are employed in disseminating. This much, at 
least, is due from them to the people who are traduced by the 
Britannica, and into whose homes they are placing that work. I 
would say, however, to those who may be so enamored of the title 
"Britannica" that ihey feel that it is not possible for a cyclopedia 
with any other title to be as good as one which bears that name, 
that if they will wait a while longer before they buy it they will in 
all probability (judging from the rate at which it has been falling) 
be able to get a Britannica at a much lower price than the one at 
which it is now offered. So rapid has been its depreciation dur- 
ing the last few years that I shall not be surprised to see it going 
for fifteen or twenty dollars, or less, within the next year or two. 
But I trust that the days for duping the people of the South into 
buying the Britannica are over. Shall we continue to buy the lit- 
erature that slanders us? Other and better cyclopedias are to be 
had, from sources less ignorant of and less prejudiced against this 
section than those which inspired the British work, and to them 
should our preference be given. 

ANGLO-MANIACS. 

There are, as I have said, some who have been impressed with 
the belief that in the Britannica they have the ne plus ultra of 
human knowledge. They read and are imposed upon by its ex- 
traordinary claims, gaze upon its big volumes and its pictures, are 



42 THE BRTTANNICA ANSWERED, 

deeply struck with its big- sounding title, and its long monographs 
(which they will never read and couldn't understand. if they were 
to read them), and, affected, doubtless, with that mental ailment 
pathologically known as Anglo-mania — the subjects of which may 
be recognized by the extravagant regard they have for whatever is 
"English, you know" — they buy it, set it up, and prostrate them- 
selves before it in an attitude of abject intellectual adoration. 
Many of them worship simply its outside — its title, and have 
probably never read half a dozen pages in it, and don't know that 
they have in their libraries a book' which not only maligns the 
South, but which also 

MAKES WAR ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 

to such an extent as to cause the New York Christian Advocate to 
say, — "The Encyclopaedia Biitannica is pervaded by a 'spirit of 
prejudice against evangelical Christianity;" and the Christian In- 
telligencer to say, — "'We have been asking ourselves, 'Is this Ency- 
clopcedia edited in the interest of modern skepticism?' We are 
beginning to ask ourselves also, whether it would not be wise to 
request to be released from our subscription to the work, and 
whether we might not as well subscribe to a new edition of Paine's 
Age of Reason, revised and enlarged by the most eminent skep- 
tics of the day;" and the New Orleans Presbyterian to say, — "It 
is clearly evident that this Encyclopaedia is controlled by those 
who belong not to the army of the Defenders of the Faith, but to 
the host which are studiously seeking to undermine its battlements 
and to sap the foundations of the Christian religion." Such is the 
Encyclopedia Briiannica from the stand-point of the most en- 
lightened Christianity. When its publishers realize that they can- 
not dupe the people into bu\ing the "Americanized Britannica," 
perhaps they will then try them with a "Christianized Britannica." 

A POISONED FOUNTAIN. 

If, in what I have written, I have but partially removed the 
film that has hidden from the intellectual vision of any Britannica 
worshiper the defects and monstrosities of his literary fetish, I 
have done him a service. He should be informed of them, and 
he should keep these papers as, in some sort, a refutation of its 



AND THE SOUTH VINDICATED. 



43 



falsities and an antidote for its teacliing. Especially should every 
Southern and Christian parent know that, in sending his children 
to it for information about their native land and tlie religion of 
thtir fathers, he is sending them to a poisoned fountain. 



'^ 



[From the Montgomery Advertiser, Meireli 2'J, 1801,] 

THE LEES OF VIRGINIA, 



LIGHT-HORSE HARRY" OF THE REVOLUTION, AND HIS 
IMMORTAL SON. 



There was no Relationship Between Them and the Gen- 
eral Lee of the Revolution — Something More About 
General Charles Lee — History for Northern Writers 
AND Readers. 



To the Editor of the Advertiser: 

In the Advertiser of the 17th inst., you refer to an article go- 
ing the rounds of the Northern papers headed, "General Lee, of 
the Revolution — A new discovered manuscript which places him 
in a bad li^ht — He had a contempt for Washington." Comment- 
ing on this ) ou siy that the Northern papers publishing the ar- 
ticle do not once indicate that there were two Lees who were dis- 
tinguished officers in the American army during the Revolution — 
one, General Charles Lee, an Englishman by birth, and an ad- 
venturer and a soldier of fortune by profession; the other, Henry 
Lee, a Virginian by birth, the commander of Lee's legion, the 
"Light-horse Harry" of the Revolution, the beloved of Washing- 
ton, and the father of the immortal Robert E. Lee. He it was, 
as you correctly say, who first called Washington "the man first 
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." 

I am not surjjrised at the Northern papers' not publishing the 
fact that the Lee referred to in that article was not the father of 
Robert E. Lee — was not a Virginian — but was Charles Lee, the 
Englishman. It was this same Gen. Charles Lee who was wounded 
in a duel by Col. Laurens, of South Carolina, who challenged Lee 
for language disrespectful to Washington . He was court-mar- 
tialed and suspended from command for disobedience of orders, 
misbehavior before the enemy, and disrespect of the commander- 



THE LEES OF VIRGINIA. 45 

in-chief; and was subsequently disinissed from the service for 
writing an impertinent letter to Congress. Documentary evidence 
discovered nearly a hundred years afterwards shows that he 
plotted treason against the American cause. He was the second 
ofificer in command in the Revolutionary army, ranking next to 
Washington. He had high talent and literary culture, but was 
extremely eccentric , irascible, vain and boastful. His inordinate 
vanity and thirst for distinction led him to try to create the im- 
pression that he was the author of the "Letters of Junius," and 
he therefore figures in the literature on that subject as one of the 
many to whom the authorship of those celebrated letters has been 
attributed, for there were some who, for a time, believed that he 
really did write them. Investigation showed that there was 
nothing to sustain the claim for him . The facts disclosed wholly 
disproved it. 

THE USUAL northerner's APPALLING IGNORANCE OF AMERICAN 

HISTORY. 

There was no relationship between Gen. Charles Lee and the 
illustrious Virginia family of the same name. I don't suppose 
that the facts are known to the Northern editors who are publish- 
ing the article in question. • No doubt they suppose that the Gen- 
eral Lee to whom it refers was the Virginian, and the father of 
Robert E. Lee, notwithstanding the fact that Henry Lee's rank 
in the Revolution was that of Lieutenant-Colonel, and not Gen- 
eral. He did not bear the title of General till he was appointed 
by President Washington to command the army sent to quell the 
"Whisky Insurrection" in Pennsylvania, some years after the 
Revolution. I do not doubt that the Northern editors are wholly 
unaware of these facts. The density of the usual Nortlierner's 
ignorance of the history of his country is something appalling. 

"gATH" AND the BOSTON editor. 

A few years ago the most noted of Northern newspaper writers 
— Mr. George Alfred Townsend, commonly known as "Gath" — in 
an elaborate historical paper (so-called) in the Boston Globe, 
said that it was largely through the influence of the writings com- 
prised in the book called "The Federalist" that the convention 
was called that framed the Constitution of the United States! 
And the Boston editor called the special attention of his readers 
to the exceptional historical value of Mr. Townsend's paper, and 



46 THE LEES OE VIRGINIA. 

announced that it was to be jjublished in book form for the in- 
struction of the New Enghind youths in the history of their 
country! Think of such ignorance as that, in the last decade of 
the nineteenth century, and in Boston ! 

And it is only a few months since this same noted writer, 
"Gaih," in another historical article (so-called), said that "the two 
principal writers of the essays called "The Federalist" were John Jay 
and Alexander Hamilton I And yet there are thousands of people 
who read almost daily "Gath's" two, three and four column let- 
ters, and think, like the Boston editor, that they are getting his- 
tory in doing it. 

MRS. Cleveland's good example. 

Verily, it is high time for the formation of clubs or societies all 
over the land for the encouragement of the study of American 
history. Mrs. Cleveland and other genuine American women 
have started a movement of that kind among the women of New 
York, and it is an example that should be followed in every 
American city, and town . Especially should the people of the 
South welcome and encourage it, for no other section has suffered 
as much as it has from the misconception and prejudice resulting 
from ignorance of the history of this country, and no other section 
has so much of glory to gain from the dissemination of a full and 
accurate knowledge of that history. 

henry lee. 

Recurring to the Lees, let me say through the Advertiser for 
the information of the Northern editors who are exulting in the 
belief that they have found something that besmirches the fame 
of the father of Robert E Lee, that if they will read page 762 of 
the eighth volume of The Liternational Cyclopedia they will find 
there these words: 

"Henry Lee, a distinguished American general, was one of the 
mo-t daring, vigilant and successful cavalry officers on the side 
of the colonists. Lee's legion was probably the most effective and 
courageous body of troops raised in America, In the famous re- 
treat of Greene before Cornwallis it formed the rear-guard, the 
post of honor, and covered itself wiih glory . At the battles of 
Guildfod court-house and Eutaw, at the sieges of Forts Watson, 
Motte, and Granby and Augusta, and at the storming of Fort 
Grierson, Lee particularly signalized himself." 



THE LEES OF VIRGINIA. 47 

ROBERT E. LEE. 

Then if the Northern editors will read further in the same Cy- 
clopedia, they will find there these words: 

'■Robert E. Lee, son of the preceding, was commander in-chief 
of the army of the Confederate States of America. * * ^ 

* * He defended Richmond against the Federal army un- 

der McClellan and a,fter six days of sanguinary battles drove him 
to the shelter of his gunboats. Marching north, he defeated Gen- 
eral Pope in the sec(md battle of Manassas. Crossing the Potomac 
into Maryland, with a force of 40,000, he was met at Antietam by 
McClellan with 80,000, and after a bloody, but indecisive conflict, 
recrossed the Potomac and took a position at Fredericksburg, 
where he was attacked by General Burnside, whose army he de- 
feated with great slaughter. Gen. Hooker, the successor of Gen- 
erals McClellan, Pope and Burnside, whom Lee had successively 
defeated, crossed the Rappahannock May ist, 1863, and was at- 
tacked by Gen Lee, routed with heavy loss and compelled to 
escape in the night across the river," (Some dates are omitted 
here for the sake of space.) 

On page 767 of the same volume, the Northern editors, if they 
will pursue the interesting and truthful line of historical reading 
on which I have put them, will find these words: ' Gen. Joseph 
Hooker had been appointed to supersede Gen. Burnside, and 
with a powerful army now declared his intention to make quick 
work of ousting the Confederate army from Fredericksburg. His 
army was double in numbers that of Lee. On April 29 he had 
massed six army corps on the north side of the Rappahannnock 
near Chancellorsville, and should have chosen his own battlefield. 
The genius of Lee was never more conspicuous than at this time. 
He took the initiative of attack before Hooker's army was through 
the 'wilderness,' and detaching Gen. 'Stonewall' Jackson with 
21,000 men to make a long circuit to the rear of the right flank of 
the Union army, he occui)ied Gen. Hooker with menaces in front 
until the evening ot the 30th, when Jackson's attack fell like a 
thunderbolt fiom a clear sky on the rear of the Union army. 
The next morning the attack was made real in the front, and such 
was the paralysis of the L-nion commanders, and such was the 
mastery of the time and place for action on the part of Lee, that 
the great army of Hooker was already defeated, * * * On 



40 THE LEES OF VIRGINIA. 

May 4th the whole Union army was in full retreat, completely out- 
generaled at all points." 

"Lee now organized his army to renew the invasion of Pennsyl- 
vania. * * * He maneuvered so as to force Hooker with all 
his army to follow, but at the same time so attenuated his line as 
to draw the following characteristic letter from President Lincoln 
to Gen. Hooker: 'If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg 
and the tail of it on the plank-road between Fredericksburg and 
Chancellorsvilte, the animal must be very slim somewhere; could 
you not break him?' But Hooker was evidently afraid of Lee 
anywhere, and with reason." Then follows on the same page an 
account of the battle of Gettysburg, closing with these words: 
"On the afternoon of the 3rd (July, 1863,) Lee massed 145 cannon 
and Oldened the battle with their thunder, under cover of which 
his attacking columns were formed. The attack was all that human 
bravery could make it; but the column melted before the fire 
that waited for it; and though its head reached and covered the 
key of the struggle, the main force of the column was annihilated, 
and the position retaken. Gen. Lee's noble equanimity was con- 
spicuous in this defeat in the manner of his meeting the disorgan- 
ized remnant of that returning column; infusing them with his 
own serene confidence. A retreat was now necessary, but it was 
deliberate and orderly, and Gen. Meade, after his victory, found 
no place in Lee's army for attack." 

THEY SHOULD READ IT ALL. 

I am sure the Northern editors must, by this time, be sufficiently 
interested in the subject to read the conclusion of the Interna- 
tional Cyclopedia's article on Gen. Lee. Aside from the histor- 
ical instruction they will derive from it, they will find the whole 
article a model of clear cut English, well worth perusal for the 
chasteness and vigor of its style. Of course only extracts are 
given from it here. It concludes as follows:- 

"The 'immense campaign' of 1864 for the possession of Rich- 
mond was now to test and crown the military fame of Gen. Lee. 
Gen. U. S. Grant, victorious thus far on every field, assumed the 
personal command of the army of the Potomac. For an entire 
year all the vast resources at his command were used with that 
rugged grit that regards no loss of life too great which -achieves 
the quick end of war, and with an energy and skill that all the 



THE LEES OF VIRGINIA. 49 

world acknowledges. Yet during that entire year Gen. Lee, with 
an army small in comparison, by his engineering skill, masterly 
handling, and invariable readiness, held Grant's army at bay, and 
yielded at last only as a cube of steel may ) ield to the last great 
pressure of a colossal vise. Grant was hammering at the front of 
flint that Lee invariably presented. But the weakening force 
could but show their heroic valor and the resources of their com- 
mander. The last council of war of the army of Northern Vir- 
ginia was held on the evening of the 8th of April, 1865, and Gen- 
eral Lee surrendered the remnant of his troops on the 9th. His 
parting address to his men is a model of sad dignity and grateful 
recognition of an army's constancy. ' * * * 

"In person General Lee was of the noblest type of manly 
beauty; tall, broad-shouldered, erect, with a dignity as impressive 
as that of Washington, yet not so cold; of habits as pure, more 
warmly rebgious; with a calm, confident, kindly manner that no 
disaster could change. Wishing every one to remain faithful to 
the old traditions of the South in all that pertained to honor, vir- 
tue and hospitality, yet he set himself to work to root up those 
animosities and provincial rivalries which led only to ruin." 

Such were the Lees of Virginia whose names head this article, 
— Henry Lee, the father; and Robert E. Lee, the son. As they 
made themselves glorious by their deeds, History has made them 
glorious by her words, and they 

"Are Freedom's now, and Fame's; 
Among 'he few, the immortal names, 
That were not born to die." 

The South claims them as her own, and proudly says of each of 
them, as a duke of Ormonde said of an earl of Ossory, 'T would 
not exchange my dead son for any living son in the world." I 
commend the study of their lives and of our country's history to 
the millions of uninformed and misinformed peoi)le of the North. 

T. K. Oglesby. 

Montgomery, Ala., March, 1891. 



ADDENDA. 



ADDENDUM A 

[Referred to on page 13.] 



SHERMAN m GEORGIA AND CAROLINA. 

[Extract from Alexander 11. Stephens's History of The War Between the States. Vol. 

II, pp. 510-511] 

Private houses were sacked, pillaged, and then burnt; and after 
all family supplies were destroyed, or rendered unfit for use, help- 
less women and hungry children were left destitute alike of shel- 
ter and food. I know men — old men, non combatants, men who 
had nothing to do with the war, further than to indulge in that 
sympathy which nature prompted — who were seized by a licensed 
soldiery and put to brutal torture, to compel them to disclose and 
to deliver up treasure that it was sup!:)Osed they possessed. They 
were in many instances hung by the neck until life was nearly ex- 
tinguished, and then cut down with the promise to desist if their 
demands were comiilied with, and threats of repeating the opera- 
tion to death if they were not. Judge Hiram Warner, one of the 
most upright and unoffending, as well as one of the most distin- 
guished citizens of Georgia, was the victim of an outrage of this 
sort. He had had nothing to do with the war; but it was supposed 
he had money, and that was what these "truly loyal" "Union 
Restorers," so-called, were most eager to secure. Instances of a 
similar character are numerous and notorious. In some cases, 
where parties resisted, their lives as well as their purses, watches 
and other articles of value, were taken! 



[The following extracts are from a Pamphlet on The Destruction of Columbia. South 
Carolina, written and published in 1S65, by the gifted and accomplished William 
Gilmore Sims, LL. D.] 

The destruction of Atlanta, the pillaging and burning of other 
towns of Georgia, and the subsequent devastation along the march 
of the Federal army through Georgia, gave sufficient earnest of 



SHERMAN IN GEORGIA AND CAROLINA. 5 I 

the treatment to be anticipated by South Carolina should the same 
commander be permitted to make a like progress in our State. 
^ * * * * * 

Half naked people cowered from the winter under bush-tents in 
the thickets, under the eaves of houses, under the railroad sheds, 
and in old cars left them along the route. All these repeated the 
same story of suffering, violence, poverty, and nakedness. Habita- 
tion after habitation, village after village— one sending up its 
signal flames to the other, presaging for it the same fate — lighted 
the winter and midnight sky with crimson horrors. 

* * >ii * * * 

No language can describe nor can any catalogue furnish an 
adequate detail of the wide- spread destruction of homes and 
property. Granaries were emptied, and where the grain was not 
carried off it was strewn to waste under the feet of the cavalry or 
consigned to the fire which consumed the dwelling. The negroes 
were robbed equally with the whites of food and clothing. The 
roads were covered with butchered cattle, hogs, mules, and the 
costliest furniture. Valuable cabinets, rich pianos, were not only 
hewn to pieces, but bottles of ink, turpentine, oil, whatever could 
efface or destroy was employed to defile and ruin. Horses were 
ridden into the houses. People w^ere forced from their beds to 
permit the search after hidden treasures. 

* * -ij * * * 

Hardly had the troops reached the head of Main street (in 
Columbia), when the work of pillage was begun. Stores were 
broken open within the first hour after their arrival, and gold, 
silver, jewels and liquors eagerly sought. The authorities, officers, 
soldiers, all, seemed to consider it a matter of course. And woe 
to him who carried a watch with gold chain pendant; or who wore 
a choice hat or overcoat, or boots or shoes. He was stripped in 
the twinkling of an eye. Purses shared the same fate- 

* * ^ * ^ * 

No one felt safe in his own dwelling; and, in the faith that 
General Sherman would respect the Convent and have it properly 
guarded, numbers of young ladies were confided to the care of the 
Mother Superior, and even trunks of clothes and treasures were 
sent thither, in full confidence thai they would find safely. Vain 



52 ADDENDUM A. 

illusions! The Irish Catholic troops, it appears, were not brought 
into the city at all; were kept on the other side of the river. But 
a few Catholics were among the corps which occupied the city, 
and of the conduct of these a favorable account is given. One of 
them rescued a silver goblet of the church, used as a drinking cup 
by a soldier,' and restored it to the Rev. Dr. O'Connell. This 
priest, by the way, was severely handled by the soldiers. Such, 
also, was the fortune of the Rev. Mr. Shand, of Trinity (the 
Episcopal) church, who sought in vain to save a trunk containing 
the sacred vessels of his church. It was violently wrested from 
his keeping, and his struggle lo save it only provoked the rougher 
usage. 

* * * sjc * * 

In a number of cases the guards provided for the citizens were 
among the most active plunderers; were quick to betray their 
trusts, abandon their posts, and bring their comrades in to join in 
the general pillage. The most dexterous and adroit of these, it is 
the opinion of most persons, were chiefly Eastern men, or men of 
immediate Eastern origin. 

* * * * * * 

But the reign of terror did not fairly begin till night. In 
some instances, where parties complained of the misrule and 
robbery, their guards said to them, with a chuckle: "This is 
nothing. Wait till to-night and you'll see h — 1." 

About dark a body of the soldiers fired the dwellings of Mr. 
Trenholm, General Wade Hampton, and many others. There 
were then some twenty fires in full blast in as many different 
quarters. * * * The men engaged in this were well prepared 
with all the appliances essential to their work. They did not need 
the torch. They carried with them, from house to house, pots 
and vessels containing combustible liquids, composed probably of 
phosphorus and other similar agents, turpentine, etc., and, with 
balls saturated in this liquid, with which they also overspread 
floors and walls, they conveyed the flames with wonderful rapidity 
from dwelling to dwelling. Each had his ready box of Lucifer 
matches, and, with a scrape upon the walls, the flames began to 
rage. Where houses were closely contiguous a brand from one 
was the means of conveying destruction to the other. * ^- * * 
The work went on without impedi-merit and with hourly increase 



SHERMAN IN GEORGIA AND CAROLINA. 53 

throughout the night. * * It was a scene for the painter of the 
terrible. * * * Throughout the whole of it the soldiers con- 
tinued their search after spoil. The houses were soon gutted of 
their contents. Hundreds of iron safes, warranted "impenetrable 
to fire and the burglar," were not "Yankee proof." They were 
split open and robbed. Jewelry and plate in abundance was 
found. Men could be seen staggering off with huge waiters, 
vases, candelabra, to say nothing of cups, goblets, and smaller 
vessels, all of solid silver. Clothes and shoes, when new, were 
appropriated — the rest left to burn. 

* * * * * * 

Ladies were hustled from their chambers — their ornaments 
plucked from their ijersons. their bundles from their hands. It 
was in vain that the mother appealed for the garments of her 
children. They were torn from her grasp and hurlrd into the 
flames. The young girl striving to save a single frock, had it rent 
to fibres in her grasp. Men and women bearing off their trunks 
were seized, despoiled, in a moment the trunk burst asunder, with 
the stroke of axe or gun butt, the contents laid bare, rifled of all 
the objects of desire, and the residue sacrificed to the fire. 

* * * * * * 

"Your watch!" "Your money!" was the demand. Frequently 
no demand was made. Rarely, indeed, was a word spoken, where 
the watch or chain, or ring or bracelet, presented itself conspicu- 
ously to the eye. It was incontinently plucked away from the 
neck, breast or bosom. Hundreds of women, still greater numbers 
of old men, were thus despoiled. The venerable Mr. Alfred Huger 
was thus robbed in the chamber and presence of his family, and 
in the eye of an almost dying wife. He offered resistance, and 
was collared and dispossessed by violence. We are told that the 
venerable Ex-Senator Colonel Arthur P. Hayne was treated even 

more roughly. 

* * , * * * * 

The pistol to the bosom or head of woman, the patient mother, 
the trembling daughter, was the ordinary introduction to the 
demand: "Your gold, silver, watch^ jewels!" They gave no 
time, allowed no pause or hesitation. It was in vain that the 
woman offered her keys, or proceeded to open drawer or ward- 
robe, or cabinet or trunk. It. was dashed to pieces by axe or gun 



54 



ADDENDUM A. 



butt, with the cry, ''We have a shorter way than that!" It w\is in 
vain that she pleaded to spare her furniture, and she would give 
up all its contents. All the precious things of a family; such as 
the heart loves to pore on in (piiet hours when alone with memory 
— the dear miniature, the photograph, the portrait — these were 
dashed to pieces, crushed under foot, and the more the trembler 
pleaded for the object so precious, the more violent the rage which 
destroyed it. Nothing was sacred in their eyes save the gold and 
silver which they bore away. Nor were these acts those of common 
soldiers. Commissioned officers, of rank so high as that of 
colonel, were frequently among the most active in spoliation, and, 
after glutting themselves with spoil, would often utter the foulest 
speeches, coupled with oaths as condiment. 



There are some horrors which tlie historian dare not pursue — 
which the painter dare not delineate. They both drop the curtain 
over crimes which humanity bleeds to contemplate. * * * a 
lady, undergoing the pains of labor, had to be borne out on a 
mattress into the open air, to escape the fire. It was in vain that 
her situation was described as the soldiers applied the torch within 
and without the house, after they had penetrated every chamber 
and robbed them of all that was either valuable or portable. They 
beheld the situation of the sufferer, and laughed to scorn the 
prayer for her safety. 

Another lady, Mrs. J , was but recently confined. Her 

condition was very helpless. Her life hung upon a hair. The 
men were apprised of ail the facts in the case. They burst into 
the chamber — took the rings from the lady's fingers — plucked 
the watch from beneath her pillow, and so overwhelmed her with 
terror, that she sunk under the treatment — surviving their departure 
but a day or two. In several instances, parlors, articles of crockery, 
and even beds, were used by the soldiers as if they were water- 
closets. In one case, a party used vessels in this way, then put them 
on the bed, fired at and smashed them to pieces, emptying the filthy 
contents over the bedding. In several cases, newly made graves 
were opened, the coffins taken out, broken open, in search of 
buried treasure, and ihe corpses left exposed. Every spot in 
graveyard or garden, which seemed to have been recently dis- 



SHERMAN IN GEORGIA AND CAROLINA. 55 

turbed, was sounded with sword, or bayonet, or ramrod, in their 
desperate search after spoil. 



JEFFERSON DAVIS S REGIMENT IN MEXICO. 

[Extract from the New York Sun's Review of the Memoir of Jefferson Davis, by his 

wife-] 

It was a fact well worth recording in this memoir that this regi- 
ment, from the Colonel down to the last private, returned home 
without a single article belonging to a citizen of Mexico. "The 
sacred silver and gold vessels and the church vestments studded 
over with precious stones were in an open room at Monterey and 
also at Saltillo. The image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a large 
doll dressed in satin, was admired and examined, but left untouched, 
though the frock in which she was arrayed was worked in arabesques 
adorned with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds of great price, 
and she wore a necklace of immense pearls which were of several 
colors. Col. Davis saw one of the soldiers, in friendly conversa- 
tion with an old priest, holding admiringly a gold reliquary, the 
top of which was rayed with diamonds, several hundred, he 
thought, altogether. The Mexicans felt and had perfect security 
for their property." 



ADDKNDUIVI B, 

[Referred to on page l<s.] 



INTOLEEANCE IX MASSACHUSETTS. 



The reprehensible and un-American ])rinciple of political and 
relic;ious intolerance has ever found congenial soil in Massa- 
chusetts. The spirit of the fathers there descended to the sons, 
and accordingly we find the notorious Hartford Convention (domi- 
nated by Massachusetts men) insisting that the Federal Constitu- 
tion be amended so that no person naturalized thereafter could be 
eligible as a member of the Senate or House of Representatives 
of the United States, nor capable of holding any civil office under 
the authority of the United States; and forty years later (1855), 
having failed to get th it proscrijjtive principle into the organic 
law of the Federal government, the people of Massachusetts then 
declared not only that no man born outside of the United States 
should hold office in that State, but "that no man who worshiped 
God in a Catholic church should hold office in the State." In 
this connection I think it well worth while to insert an extract 
from the speech of Hon. James B. Eustis, of Louisiana, in the 
United States Senate, January 21, 1891. In the course of his 
powerful speech on that occasion, Mr. Eustis said: 

"I would remind the Senator from Massachusetts that, in my 
estimation and in my judgment, the case of the most relentless, 
unblushing, cruel, and unconstitutional political proscription is 
one that occurred in the State of Massachusetts. 

"Sir, it was the aim of our fathers who framed the Constitution 
of the United States that this cjuestion of religion should never 
enter into our political deliberations or political action. From 
the bloody history of England they gathered the wisdom to pro- 
vide that the people of the United States should be exempt from 
that terrible curse, religious contention and religious proscription; 
that it would be in violation of the spirit of the Constitution that 
any State or any political party should establish a religious test as 
a qualification for office in this country. 



INTOLERANCE IN MASSACHUSETTS. 57 

"And yet, Mr President, do we not remember the period of 1854 
and 1S55 in the State of Massachusetts, when her people decided 
by an overwhelming majority, on a question that stirred the State 
from top to bottom, the principle and the proclaimed determina- 
tion that no man who worshiped God in a Catholic church should 
hold office in the State; that before he became qualified (in the 
estimation of the people of that State), before he could reinstate 
himself as eligible to political office, no matter how in-;ignificanr, 
in the State of Massachusetts, he must renounce the religion of 
his mother and bow down to Massachusetts' Protestantism, and 
worship that God, and that God alone? 

"Was that the justice, Mr. President, which the St^ator from 
Massachusetts invokes from us? Was that the toleration which 
he invokes from us?* Ah, Mr. President, if that platform of Massa- 
chusetts and that political faith of Massachusetts had not been 
destroyed and exterminated in this country by the sturdy 
democracy of this land, this country from one end to the other 
would have been plunged into civil strife and human blood would 
have flowed on every political field of this vast domain. 

"But this is not all, Mr. President. Not satisfied with making 
war upon the religion of their fellow-citizens, reviving the days 
when they burned convents and expelled nuns from their conse- 
crated habitations; not yet satiated with that infernal spirit of 
political proscription which makes the blackest page that has 
been written in the history of this countrv; not satisfied with 
having gorged themselves with political power secured by having 
trampled upon the religion of their fellow-citizens, they extended 
their political warfare and their political proscription in still 
another direction, and declared in their platform and in their 
political creed that no man who was born abroad, although he 
might be a naturalized citizen of the United States, was qualified 
to hold office in the State of Massachusetts; that Mr. Pat Collins, 
who has served his State with distinction in the other House; who 
has conferred — though he would not say so himsrlf — honor upon 
the constituency which he represented in the other House, and 
who only a few days ago was tendered a position by a Democratic 
governor as judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts; that 
John Boyle O'Reilly, that great Irishman who made fame by his 
honesty, his patriotism, and his literary attainments, around whose 



58 ADDENDUM I?. 

tomb the other day were gathered, irrespective of party, thousands 
and thousands of Boston's citizens, feeling that the State of 
Massachusetts had suffered a terrible bereavement — that those 
two men, under the political creed which existed, and which 
probably the Senator from Massachusetts, if he had been old 
enough, would have indorsed, were unworthy for a double reason 
to hold any office in the State of Massachusetts — one because 
they were Catholics, and the other because they were foreign-born 
citizens." 



addendum: c. 

[Referred to on page 28.] 



THE FEDERATIVE PRINCIPLE OF OUR GOV- 
ERNMENT. 



[Alexander H Stephens, in "The War Between the States," Vol. 1, pp. 534-535] 

In the Federative principle of our Government its chief strength, 
its great beauty, its complete symmetry, its ultimate harmony, and, 
indeed, its very perfection, mainly consist; certainly, so long as 
the objects aimed at in its formation are the objects aimed at in 
its administraiion. And, on this principle, on the full recognition 
of the absolute ultimate Sovereignty of the several States, I did 
consider it the best, and the strongest, and the grandest Govern- 
ment on earth! My whole heart and soul were devoted to the 
Constitution, and the Union under it, with this understanding of 
its nature, character, objects, and functions! 

When, therefore, the • Siate of Georgia seceded, against my 
judgment, viewing the measure in the light oi policy, only, and 
not of right, 1 felt it to be my duty to go with her, not only from 
a sense of the obligations of allegiance, but from other high 
considerations of patriotism of not much less weight and influence. 
These considerations pressed upon the mind the importance of 
maintaining this principle, which lies at the foundation of all 
Federal systems; and to which we were mainly indebted, in ours, 
for all the great achievements of the past. It was under this 
construction of the nature of our system that all these achieve- 
ments had been attained. This was the essential and vital 
principle of the system, to which I was so thoroughly devoted. It 
was that which secured all the advantages of Confederation without 
the risk of Centralism and Absolutism; and on its preservation 
depended, not only the safety and welfare, and even existence, of 
my own State, but the safety, welfare, and ultimate existence of 
all the other States of the Union! The States were older than 
the Union! They made it. It was their own creation! Their 



6o 



ADDENDUM -C. 



preservation was of infinitely more importance than itscontinuance! 
The Union might cease to exist, and yet the States continue to 
exist, as betoie! Not so with the Union, in case of the destruction 
or annihihition of the States.! With their extinction, the Union 
necc^•sarlly beromes extinct also! They may survive it, and form 
another, more perfe< t, if the lapse of time and changes of events 
show it to be necessary, for the same objects had in view when it 
was form d; but it cnn never survive them! \\'hat may be called 
a Union mny spring from the common ruins, but it would not be 
the Union of the Constitution! — the Union of States! By what- 
ever name it might be called, whether Union, Nation, Kingdom, 
or anything else, according to the taste of its dupes or its devotees, 
it would, in reality, be nothing but that deformed and hideous 
Monster which rist-s from the decomposing elements of dead 
Sates, the world over, and which is well known by the friends of 
Constitutional Liberty, everywhere, as the D.-mon of Centralism, 
Absolutism, Despotism! This is the necessary reality of that 
result, whether the Imperial Powers be seized and wielded by the 
hands of many, of few, or of one! 




